a 
na 


Ag 
fer Fai! 


if 
af 
Ht Hie é am 
Ui ae Ty ase 00 y 
Hey 


iy 


=F 


pe iy 
i fe ONES 
AP AL iar hy 
y Ei teign 
aS aa ate 
th es bee 
Ay rerut seep 
~ teat 


Sree beiee, oe t] 
ae tae he i 
WEE Sh cmlarer bs 


BREEN } sell 
ety |e He 
Prete pepslies Moibae ay 


|‘ 
Hamat relate 
APASU hit fete 


ah? 
MA 
hal ay 


ry 
Pye ‘ pe) ty i, i 
ee ESR i) ries Ue ea Mak 
| ; ! ) Py 14 
i ea E ¢ 4, : oy ) 
ist ; igs 
a 


i) 
ibe jw 
Cee Bhd 

¥ 




















f 


aL WHLEX Lipris |_| 


IS 
SS 





















































. 
——$—$—$—$ $ ——————————————_ — 




















ee 


” 





ATLANTIS 


Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2008 with funding from 
Microsoft Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/atlantisnovel0Ohauprich 








‘Atlantis - 


A novel by 


Gerhart Hauptmann 


| 


Translated by Adele and Thomas Seltzer 





NEW YORK 
B. W. HUEBSCH 
1912 








Copyright 1912 by 
S. FISCHER, VERLAG, BERLIN 


Copyright 1912 by 
B. W. HUEBSCH 


All rights reserved 


PRINTED IN U.S, A, 


ATLANTIS 


PART I 
I 


Tur German fast mail steamer, Roland, one of the 
older vessels of the North German Steamship Company, 
plying between Bremen and New York, left Bremen on 
the twenty-third of January, 1892. 

It had been built in English yards with none of those 
profuse, gorgeous gold decorations in a riotous rococo 
style which are so unpleasant in the saloons and cabins 
of ships more recently built in German yards. 

The crew of the vessel included the captain, four offi- 
cers, two engineers of the first rank, assistant engineers, 
firemen, coal-passers, oilers, a purser, the head-steward 
and the second steward, the chef, the second cook, and 
a doctor. In addition to these men with their assist- 
ants, to whom the well-being of that tremendous float- 
ing household was entrusted, there were, of course, a 
number of sailors, stewards, stewardesses, workers in 
the kitchen, and so on, besides two cabin-boys and a 
nurse. There was also an officer in charge of the mail 
on board. The vessel was carrying only a hundred 
cabin passengers from Bremen; but in the steerage there 
were four hundred human beings. 

Frederick von Kammacher, to whom, the day before, 


a5 94a6 


SQiieisite lilt wr LANTIs 


the Roland had been non-existent, telegraphed from 
Paris to have a cabin on it reserved for him. Haste 
was imperative. After receiving notification from the 
company that the cabin was being held, he had only an 
hour and a half in which to catch the express that would 
bring him to Havre at about twelve o’clock. From 
Havre he crossed to Southampton, spending the night 
in a bunk in one of those wretched saloons in which a 
number of persons are herded together. But he man- 
aged to sleep the whole time, and the crossing went 
without incident. 

At dawn he was on deck watching England’s ghostly 
coast-line draw nearer and nearer, until finally the 
steamer entered the port of Southampton, where he was 
to await the Roland. 

At the steamship office, he was told that the Roland 
would scarcely make Southampton before evening, and 
at seven o’clock a tender would be at the pier to convey 
the passengers to the ship as soon as it was sighted. 
That meant twelve idle hours in a dreary foreign town, 
with the thermometer at ten degrees below freezing- 
point. Frederick decided to take a room in a hotel, 
and, if possible, pass some of the time in sleep. 

In a shop window he saw a display of cigarettes of 
the brand of Simon Arzt of Port Said. He entered the 
shop, which a maid was sweeping, and bought several 
hundred. It was an act dictated by sentiment rather 
than by a desire for enjoyment. The cigarettes of 
Simon Arzt of Port Said were excellent, the best he had 
ever smoked; but the significance they had acquired for 
him was not due to any intrinsic virtue of theirs. 

He carried an alligator portfolio in his waistcoat 
pocket. In that portfolio, among other things, was a 
letter he had received the very day he left Paris: 


ATLANTIS 8 


Dear FREDERICK, 

It’s no use. I left the sanatorium in the Harz and returned 
to my parents’ home a lost man. That cursed winter in the 
Heuscheuer Mountains! After a stay in tropical countries, I 
should not have thrown myself into the fangs of such a winter. 
Of course, the worst thing was my predecessor’s fur coat. To 
my predecessor’s fur coat I owe my sweet fate. May the devil 
in hell take special delight in burning it. I need scarcely tell 
you that I gave myself copious injections of tuberculin and spat 
a considerable number of bacilli. But enough remained behind 
to provide me with a speedy ewitus letalis. 

Now for the essential. I must settle my bequests. I find I 
owe you three thousand marks. You made it possible for me to 
complete my medical studies. To be sure, they have failed me 
miserably. But that, of course, you cannot help, and, curiously 
enough, now that all’s lost, the thing that most bothers me is 
the horrid thought that I cannot repay you. 

My father, you know, is principal of a public school and 
actually managed to save some money. But he has five children 
beside myself, all of whom are unprovided for. He looked upon 
me as his capital which would bring more than the usual rate of 
interest. Being a practical man, he now realises he has lost both 
principal and interest. 

In brief, he is afraid of responsibilities which unfortunately I 
cannot shoulder in the better world to come— faugh, faugh, 
faugh!—I spit three times. What shall I do? Would you be 
able to forego the payment of my debt? 

Several times, old boy, I have been two thirds of the way over 
already, and I have left for you some notes on the states I have 
passed through, which may not be lacking in scientific interest. 
Should it be possible for me, after the great moment, to make 
myself noticeable from the Beyond, you will hear from me again. 

Where are you? Good-bye. In the vivid, flashing orgies of my 
nocturnal dreams, you are always tossing in a ship on the high 
seas. Do you intend to go on an ocean trip? 

It is January. Isn’t there a certain advantage in not needing 
to dread April weather any longer? I shake hands with you, 
Frederick von Kammacher. 

Yours, 
GrorGE RasMUSSEN. 

Frederick, of course, had immediately sent a tele- 
gram from Paris, which relieved the son, dying a heroic 


death, from solicitude for his hale father. 


' 
A ATLAN TIS 


Though Frederick von Kammacher had profound 
troubles of his own to occupy his mind, his thoughts 
kept recurring to the letter in his pocket and his dying 
friend. ‘To an imaginative person of thirty, his life 
of the past few years is in an eminent degree present to 
his mind. ‘There had been a tragic turn in Frederick’s 
own life, and now tragedy had also entered his friend’s 
life, a tragedy far more awful. 

The two young men had been separated for a number 
of years. They had met again and passed a number 
of happy weeks together, enriched by a liberal ex- 
change of ideas. Those weeks were the beginning of 
similar epochs in the career of each. It was at little 
winter festivities in Frederick von Kammacher’s com- 
fortable home that the cigarettes of Simon Arzt of Port 
Said, which Rasmussen had brought from the place of 
their manufacture, had played their role. 

Now, in the reading-room of Hofmann’s Hotel, near 
the harbour, he wrote him a letter. 


Dear orp GEORGE, 

My fingers are clammy. I am constantly dipping a broken 
pen in mouldy ink; but if I don’t write to you now, you won’t 
get any news of me for three weeks. This evening I board the 
Roland of the North German Steamship Company. 

There seems to be something in your dreams. Nobody could 
have told you of my trip. Two hours before I started, I myself 
knew nothing of it. 

Day after to-morrow it will be a year since you came to us 
direct from Bremen, after your second journey, with a trunk full 
of stories, photographs, and the cigarettes of Simon Arzt. I had 
scarcely set foot in England when twenty paces from the landing- 
place, I beheld our beloved brand in a shop window. Of course, 
I bought some, by wholesale, in fact, and am smoking one while 
writing, for the sake of auld lang syne. Unfortunately, this hor- 
rible reading-room in which I am writing doesn’t get any the 
warmer, no matter how many cigarettes I light. 

You were with us two weeks when fate came and knocked at 


ATLANTIS 5 


the door. We both rushed to the door and caught a cold, it 
seems. As for me, I have sold my house, given up my practice, 
and put my three children in a boarding school. And as for my 
wife, you know what has befallen her. 

The devil! Sometimes it makes one creepy to think of the 
past. To both of us it seemed a splendid thing for you to take 
over our sick colleague’s practice. I can see you dashing about 
to visit your patients in his sleigh and fur coat. And when he 
died, I had not the slightest objection to your settling down as 
a country physician in the immediate vicinity, although we had 
always poked a lot of fun at a country physician’s starvation 
practice. 

Now things have turned out very differently. 

Do you remember with what an endless number of monotonous 
jokes the goldfinches that fairly overran the Heuscheuer Moun- 
tains used to furnish us? When we approached a bare bush or 
tree, it would suddenly sway to and fro and scatter gold leaves. 
We interpreted that as meaning mountains of gold. In the even- 
ing we dined on goldfinches, because the hunters who went out on 
Sundays sold them in great quantities and my tippling cook 
cooked them deliciously. At that time you swore you would not 
remain a physician. You were not to live from the pockets of 
poor patients; the State was to salary you and put at your dis- 
posal a huge store of provisions, so that you could supply your 
impoverished patients with flour, wine, meat and necessities. And 
now, in token of its gratitude, the evil demon of the medical 
guild has dealt you this blow. But you must get well again. 

I am off for America. When we see each other again, you will 
learn why. I can be of no use to my wife. With Binswanger, 
she is in excellent hands. Three weeks ago, when I visited her, 
she did not even recognise me. 

I have finished forever with my profession and my medical and 
bacteriological studies. I have had ill luck, you know. My scien- 
tific reputation has been torn to shreds. They say it was fuzz 
instead of the exciting organism of anthrax that I examined in 
a dye and wrote about. Perhaps, but I don’t think so. At any 
rate, the thing is a matter of indifference to me. 

Sometimes I am thoroughly disgusted with the clownish tricks 
the world plays upon us, and I feel an approach to English 
spleen. Nearly the whole world, or, at least Europe, has turned 
into a cold dish on a station lunch-counter, and I have no appetite 
for it. 


He wound up with cordial lines to his dying friend, 
and handed the letter to a German porter to mail. 


6 ATLANTIS 


In his room, the temperature was icy, the window- 
panes frozen over. Without undressing he lay down 
in one of two vast, chilly beds. 

At best, the frame of mind of a traveller with a 
night’s journey behind him and an ocean crossing ahead 
of him, is not enviable. Frederick’s condition was 
aggravated by a whirl of painful, partially warring 
recollections, which crowded into his mind, jostling and 
pushing one another aside in a ceaseless chase. For 
the sake of storing up strength for the events to come, 
he would gladly have gone to sleep, but as he lay there, 
whether with open or closed eyes, he saw past events 
with vivid clearness. 

The young man’s career from his twentieth to his 
thirtieth year had not teparted from the conventional 
lines of his class. Ambition and great aptitude in his 
specialty had won him the protection of eminent scien- 
tists. He had been Professor Koch’s assistant, and, 
without a rupture of their ‘friendly relations, had also 
studied several semesters under Koch’s opponent,-Pet- 
tenkofer, i in Munich. When he went to Rome for the 
purpose of investigating malaria, he met Mrs. Thorn 
and her daughter, who later became his wife and whose 
mind was now deranged. Angéle Thorn brought him 
a considerable addition to his own small fortune. The 
delicacy of her constitution caused him, eventually, to 
move with her and the three children that had come 
to them to a healthy mountain district; but the change 
did not interfere with his scientific work or professional 
connections. 

Thus it was that in Munich, Berlin, and other scien- 
tific centres, he had been considered one of the most 
competent bacteriologists, a man whose career had 
passed the stage of the problematical. The worst 


ATLANTIS 4 


against him — and that only in the opinion of the cut- 
and-dried among his fellow-scientists, who shook their 
heads doubtfully — had been a certain belletristic ten- 
dency. Now, however, that his abortive work had 
appeared and he had suffered his great defeat, all 
serious scientists said it was the cultivation of side in- 
terests that had weakened his strength and led the prom- 
ising young intellect along the path of self-destruction. 

In his icy room in the English hotel, Frederick med- 
itated on his past. 

“IT see three threads which the Parce have woven 
into my life. The snapping of the thread that repre- 
sents my scientific career leaves me utterly indifferent. 
The bloody tearing of the other thread ”— he had in 
mind his love for his wife—‘‘ makes the first event 
insignificant. But even though I should still hold a 
place among the most hopeful of the younger genera- 
tion of scientists, the third thread, which is still whole, 
which pierces my soul like a live wire, would have 
nullified my ambitions and all my endeavours in 
science.” 

The third thread was a passion. 

Frederick von Kammacher had gone to Paris to rid 
himself of this passion ; but the object of it, the sixteen- 
year-old daughter of a Swedish teacher of stage dancing, 
held him in bondage against his will. His love had 
turned into a disease, which had reached an acute stage, 
probably because the gloomy events of so recent oc- 
currence had induced in him a state in which men are 
peculiarly susceptible to love’s poison. 

It was a friend of his, a physician, who had intro- 
duced him in Berlin to the girl and her father, and 
who later, when sufficiently acquainted with Frederick’s 
secret, raging love, had to take it upon himself-to 


/ 


¢ 


ty! 


8 ATLANTIS 


inform the enamoured man of every change in the 
couple’s address. 

Doctor von Kammacher’s scanty luggage did not in- 
dicate careful preparation for a long trip. In a fit 
of desperation, or, rather, in an outburst of passion, 
he had made the hasty decision to catch the Roland at 
Southampton when he learned that the Swede and his 
daughter had embarked on it at Bremen on the twenty- 
third of January. ~ 


II 


Arter lying in bed about an hour, Frederick arose, 
knocked a hole in the ice crust in the pitcher, washed 
himself, and in a fever of restlessness descended again 
to the lower rooms of the little hotel. In the reading- 
room sat a pretty young Englishwoman and a German 
Jewish merchant, not so pretty and not so young. The 
dreariness of waiting produced sociability. Frederick 
and the German entered into a conversation. The Ger- 
man informed Frederick that he had lived in the United 
States and was returning by the Roland, 

The air was grey, the room cold, the young lady 
impatiently paced up and down in front of the fireplace, 
where there was no fire, and the conversation of the new 
acquaintances dwindled into monosyllables. 

The condition of the unhappy lover, as a rule, is 
concealed from the persons he meets, or unintelligible 
to them. In either case it is ridiculous. A man in love 
is alternately transported and tormented by brilliant 
and gloomy illusions. In spite of the cold, cutting 
wind, the young fool of love was driven restlessly out 
to roam the streets and alleys of the port. He thought 
of what an embarrassing position he had been in when 


ATLANTIS 9 


the Jewish merchant had insinuatingly inquired for the 
purpose of his journey. In his effort not to reveal the 
secret motive of his ocean crossing, Frederick had stam- 
mered and stuttered and given some sort of a vague 
reply. He decided that from now on, in answer to 
intrusive questioners, he would say he was going to 
America to see Niagara Falls, Yellowstone Park, and 
visit an old collegemate of his, also a physician. 

During the silent meal in the hotel, the news came 
that the Roland probably would reach the Needles at 
five o’clock, two hours earlier than was expected. 
Frederick took his coffee and smoked some Simon Arzt 
cigarettes with the German, who at the same time tried 
to do some business in his trade, which was ready-made 
clothing. ‘The two men, carrying their luggage, then 
went to the tender together. 

Here they had an uncomfortable hour’s wait, while 
the low smoke-stack belched black vapours into the 
dirty drab mist that lay oppressively upon everything 
about the harbour. From time to time the sound 
of the shovelling of coal arose from the engine- 
room. One at a time five or six passengers came 
on board, porters carrying their luggage. The saloon 
was nothing more than a glass case on deck, inside of 
which, below the windows, a bench upholstered in red 
plush ran around the sides. At irregular intervals the 
bench was heaped with disorderly piles of luggage. 

Everybody was taciturn. No one felt reposeful 
enough to settle in any one place for a length of time. 
What conversation there was, was conducted in a sub- 
dued, frightened sort of whisper. Three young ladies, 
one of whom was the Englishwoman of the reading-room, 
unwearyingly paced up and down the full length of 
the saloon. Their faces were unnaturally pale. 


10 ATLANTIS 


“‘ This is the eighteenth time I have made the round 
trip,” suddenly declared the clothing manufacturer, 
unsolicited. 

“Do you suffer from seasickness? ” somebody asked 
in reply. 

‘TI scarcely set foot on the steamer when I turn into 
a corpse. ‘That happens each time. I don’t come back 
to life until shortly before we reach Hoboken or, at 
at the other end, Bremerhaven or Cuxhaven.” 

Finally, after a long, apparently vain wait, some- 
thing seemed to be preparing in the bowels of the tender 
and at the wheel. The three ladies embraced and kissed, 
and an abundance of tears were shed. The prettiest 
one, the lady of the reading-room, remained on the 
tender; the others returned to the pier. 

Still the little boat refused to move. Finally, however, 
at nightfall, amid pitch-black darkness, the hawsers 
were loosened from the iron rings of the dock, a piercing 
whistle burst from the tender, and the screw began to 
churn the water slowly, as if merely to test itself. 

At the last moment three telegrams were handed to 
Frederick, one from his old parents and his brother, 
who wished him a happy voyage, one from his banker, 
and one from his attorney. 

Though Frederick had left neither friend nor relative 
nor even an acquaintance on the quay, yet, the instant 
he perceived the tender in motion, a storm assailed him, 
whether a storm of woe, misery, despair, or a storm of 
hope in endless happiness, he could not tell. All he 
felt was that something burst convulsively from his 
breast and throat, and seethed up, boiling hot, into his 
eyes. 

The lives of unusual men from decade to decade, it 


ATLANTIS 11 


seems, enter dangerous crises, in which one of two things 
takes place; either the morbid matter that has been 
accumulating is thrown off, or the organism succumbs 
to it in actual material death, or in spiritual death. 
One of the most important and, to the observer, most 
remarkable of these crises occurs in the early thirties 
or forties, rarely before thirty; in fact, more frequently 
not until thirty-five and later. It is the great trial 
balance of life, which one would rather defer as long 
as is expedient than make prematurely. 

It was in such a crisis that Goethe went on his Italian 
journey, that Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the 
church door in Wittenberg, that Ignatius Loyola hung 
his weapons in front of an image of the Virgin, never 
to take them down again, and that Jesus was nailed 
to the cross. As for the young physician, Frederick 
von Kammacher, he was neither a Goethe nor a Luther 
nor a Loyola; but he was akin to them not only in 
culture, but also in many a trait of genius. 

It is impossible to express in words the extent in which 
his whole previous existence passed in review before 
Frederick’s mental vision as the little tender sped be- 
yond the harbour lights of Southampton, carrying him 
away from Europe and his home. He seemed to be 
parting with a whole continent in his soul, upon which 
he would never set foot again. It was a farewell for- 
ever. No wonder if in that moment his whole being 
was shaken and could not regain its balance. 

Loyola had not been a good soldier. Else, how could 
he have discarded his arms? Luther had not been a 
good Dominican. Else, how could he have discarded 
his monk’s robes? Goethe had not been a good barrister 
or bureaucrat. A mighty, irresistible wave had swept 


12 ATLANTIS 


over those three men and also, for all the disparity be- 
tween them, over Frederick von Kammacher, washing 
the uniform away from their souls. 

Frederick was not one of those who enter this crisis 
/ unconsciously. He had been feeling its approach for 
years, and it was characteristic of him that he reflected 
upon its nature. Sometimes he was of the opinion that 
it marked the termination of youth and the beginning, 
therefore, of real maturity. It seemed to him as if 
hitherto he had worked with other people’s hands, ac- 
cording to other people’s will, guided rather than guid- 
ing. His thinking appeared to him to have been no 
thinking, but an operating with transmitted ideas. He 
put it to himself that he had been standing in a hothouse, 
and his head, like the top of a young tree reaching 
upward to the light, had broken through the glass roof 
and made its way into the open. 

“ Now I will walk with my own feet, look with my 
own eyes, think my own thoughts, and act from the 
plenary power of my own will.” 

In his valise, Frederick carried Stirner’s ** The Indi- 
vidual and his Own.” 

Man living in society is never wholly independent. 
There is no intellect that does not look about for other 
intellects, if for no other object than to seek confirma- 
tion, that is, reinforcement or guidance, at all events, 
companionship. That Frederick von Kammacher’s 
new intellectual companion was Max Stirner, was the 

esult. of a profound disillusionment. He had been dis- 
illusioned in his deep-seated altruism, which until now 
had completely dominated him, 


ATLANTIS 13 


Ill 


Densz darkness closed in around the tender. 'The 
lights of the habour disappeared completely, and the 
little cockle-shell with the glass pavilion began to roll 
considerably. The wind whistled and howled. Some- 
times it blew so hard that it seemed to be bringing the 
tender to a standstill. The screw actually did rise 
out of the water. Suddenly the whistle screeched sev- 
eral times, and again the steamer made its way through 
the darkness. 

The rattling of the windows, the quivering of the 
ship’s body, the gurgling whirr-whirr of the propeller, 
the whistling, squalling and howling of the wind, which 
laid the vessel on her:side, all this combined to produce 
extreme discomfort in the travellers. Again and again, 
as if uncertain what course to pursue, the boat stopped 
and emitted its shrill whistle, which was so stifled in 
the wild commotion of the waters that it seemed nothing 
but the helpless breathing of a hoarse throat — stopped 
and went backwards — stopped and went forwards, un- 
til again it came to an uncertain halt, twisting and 
turning in the whirling waters, carried aloft, plunged 
down, apparently lost and submerged in the darkness. 

To be exposed to impressions of this sort for only 
an hour and a half is enough gradually to reduce a 
traveller’s nerves to a state of torture. The proximity 
of that awful element the surface of which marks the 
limits of the one element in which man is capable of 
living, forces upon the mind thoughts of death and 
destruction; all the more so since the water’s tricks 
seem so incalculable to the landman that he sees danger 
where there actually is none. Another thing hard for 


14 ATLANTIS 


the man accustomed to unhampered movement to bear 
is the close confinement. All at once he loses his illu- 
sion of freedom of will. Activity, the thing that in 
the eyes of the European endows life with its sublimest 
charm, cannot in the twinkling of an eye turn into 
absolute passivity.. Nevertheless, despite these novel, 
distressing experiences, despite throbbing pulses, over- 
stimulated senses, and nerves tautened to the snapping 
point, the situation is by no means lacking in fascina- 
tion. 

Thus, Frederick von Kammacher felt a flush of ex- 
altation. Life was straining him to her breast more — 
closely, wildly, passionately than she had for a long 
time. 

‘Either life has again become the one tremendous 

Vadventure, or life is nothing,” a voice within him said. 

Again the tender lay still. Suddenly it groaned, 
churned the water, sent out huge puffs of hissing steam, 
whistled as if in great fear, once, twice — Frederick 
counted seven times —and started off at its utmost 
speed, as if to escape Satan’s clutches. And now, all 
at once, it turned, swept into a region of light, and 
faced a mighty vision. 

The Roland had reached the Needles and was lying 
tide rode. In the protection of its vast broadside the 
little tender seemed to be in a brilliantly lighted harbour. 
The impression that the surprising presence of the ocean 
greyhound made upon Frederick was in a fortissimo 
scale. He had always belonged to that class of men 
—a class which is not small — whose senses are open 
to life’s varied abundance. Only on the rarest occa- 
sions he found a thing commonplace or ordinary, and 
was never blasé in meeting a novelty. But, after all, 
there are very few persons who would be dull to the 


ATLANTIS 15 


impressions of an embarkation by night, outside a har- 
bour in the open waters. ; 

Never before had Frederick been inspired with equal 
respect for the might of human ingenuity, for the gen- 
uine spirit of his times, as at the sight of that gigantic 
black wall rising from the black waters, that tremen- 
dous facade, with its endless rows of round port-holes 
streaming out light upon a foaming field of waves pro- 
tected from the wind. In comparison with this product, 
this creation, this triumph of the divine intellect in 
man, what were undertakings like the Tower of Babel, 
allowing that they were not isolated instances and had 
actually been completed. 

Sailors were busy letting the gangway-ladder down 
the flank of the Roland. Frederick could see that up 
on deck, at the point where the ladder was being sus- 
pended, a rather numerous group of uniformed men 
had gathered, probably to receive the new passengers. 
His state of exaltation continued, even while everybody 
in the tender’s saloon, including himself, suddenly seized 
with haste, grasped his or her hand luggage and stood 
in readiness. In the presence of that improbability, that 
Titan of venturesomeness, that floating fairy palace, it 
was impossible to cling to the conviction that modern 
civilisation is all prose. The most prosaic of mortals 
here had forced upon him a piece of foolhardy romance 
compared with which the dreams of the poets lose colour 
and turn pale. 

While the tender, dancing coquettishly on the swelling 
foam, was warping to the gangway-ladder, high over- 
head, on the deck of the Roland, the band struck up a 
lively, resolute march in a martial yet resigned strain, 
such as leads soldiers to battle — to victory or to death. 
An orchestra like this, of wind instruments, drums and 


16 ATLANTIS 


cymbals was all that lacked to set the young physician’s 
nerves a-quiver, as in a dance of fire and flame. 

The music ringing from aloft out into the night and 
descending to the little tender manceuvring in the wa- 
ter, was designed to inspire timid souls with courage 
and tide them over certain horrors attendant upon the 
moment. Beyond lay the infinite ocean. In the situa- 
tion, one could not help representing it to oneself as 
black, gloomy, forbidding, a fearful, demoniac power, 
hostile to man and the works of man. 

Now, from the breast of the Roland, tore a cry rising 
higher and louder, upward from a deep bass, a mon- 
strous call, a roar, a thunder, of a fearfulness and 
strength that congealed the blood in one’s heart. 

“Well, my dear friend Roland,” flashed through 
Frederick’s mind, “ you’re a fellow that’s a match for 
the ocean.” With that he set foot on the gangway- 
ladder. He completely forgot his previous identity and 
the reason of his being here. 

When, to the wild tune of the brass band, he stepped 
from the upper rung upon the roomy deck, and stood 
in the garish sheen of an arc-light, he found himself 
between two rows of men, the officers and some of the 
ship’s crew. It was the group of uniformed men he 
had noticed from below. He was astonished and de- 
lighted to behold so many confidence-inspiring mascu- 
line figures. It was an assemblage of magnificent 
specimens of manhood, all, from the first mate down to 
the stewards, tall, picked men, with bold, simple, intelli- 
gent, honest features. Moved by a sense at once of 
pride and of complete trust and security, Frederick 
said to himself that after all there was still a German 
nation left; and the singular thought flashed through 
his mind that God would never decide to take such a 


ATLANTIS 17 


selection of noble, faithful men and drown them in 
the sea like blind puppies. 

A steward picked up his luggage and led the way 
to a cabin with two berths, which he was to have to 
himself. Soon after, he was sitting at one end of a 
horseshoe-shaped table in the dining-room. The service 
was excellent, and the few passengers from the tender 
ate and drank; but it was not very lively. The main 
dinner was over, and the little company from the tender 
in the great, low-ceiled, empty saloon, were each too 
tired and too engrossed in self to talk. 

During the meal Frederick was not aware whether 
the mammoth body was moving or standing still. The 
faint, scarcely perceptible quiver seemed too slight to 
be a sign of the motion of so huge a mass. Frederick 
had made his first sea voyage when a lad of eighteen 
as the only passenger on a merchantman going from 
Hamburg to Naples. The thirteen years since had con- 
siderably weakened the impressions of that trip. More- 
over, the luxury of this ocean liner into which he had 
strayed was something so new to him, that all he could 
do at first was scrutinize everything in astonishment. 

When he had drunk his customary few glasses of 
wine, a sense of peace and comfort stole over him. 
After their long irritation and tension his nerves suc- 
cumbed to a pleasant tiredness, which pressed upon 
him so healthily and imperatively that he felt almost 
sure of a refreshing night’s sleep. He even made the 
firm resolution — in his condition scarcely necessary — 
that for this night bygones should be bygones, the 
future the future, and the present, without regard for 
past or future, should belong unqualifiedly to rest and 
sleep. 

When he went to bed, he actually did sleep for ten 


18 ATLANTIS 


hours, heavily, without stirring. At breakfast in the 
dining-room, he asked for the passenger list, and with 


a wild leap of his heart read the names for which he 


V 


‘had been looking, Eugen Hahlstrém and Miss Ingigerd 


Hahlstrém. 


IV 


He folded up the list and glanced about. There were 
about fifteen to twenty men and women in the saloon, 
all engaged in breakfasting or giving their orders to 
the stewards. 'To Frederick it seemed they were there 
for no other purpose than to spy upon his emotions. 

The steamer had already been travelling for an hour 
on the ocean. The dining-room took up the full width 
of the vessel, and from time to time its port-holes were 
darkened by the waves dashing against them. Oppo- 
site Frederick sat a gentleman in uniform, who intro- 
duced himself as Doctor Wilhelm, the ship’s physi- 
cian. Straightway a very lively medical discussion 
began, though Frederick’s thoughts were far away. He 
was debating with himself how he should act at his 
first meeting with the Hahlstréms. 

He tried to find support in self-deception, telling him- 
self he had boarded the Roland, not for the sake of. 
little Ingigerd Hahlstrém, but because he wanted to see 
New York, Chicago, Washington, Boston, Yellowstone 
Park, and Niagara Falls. That is what he would tell 
the Hahlstréms — that a mere chance had brought them 
together on the Roland. 

He observed that he was gaining in poise. Some- 
times, when the adorer is at a distance from the object 
of his devotion, the idolatry of love assumes fateful 
proportions. During his stay in Paris, Frederick had 


& 


ATLANTIS 19 


lived in a state of constant fever, and his yearning for 
his idol had risen to an unendurable degree. About the 

image of little Ingigerd Hahlstrém, a heavenly aureole 
had laid itself, so compelling in its attraction that 
Frederick’s mental vision was literally blinded to every- 
thing else: That illusion had suddenly vanished. He 
felt ashamed of himself. “I’m a ridiculous fool,” he 
thought, and when he arose to go on deck, he felt as 
if he had shaken off oppressive fetters. The salt sea 
air blowing vigorously across the deck heightened his 
sense of emancipation and convalescence and refreshed 
him to his inner being. 

Men and women lay stretched out on steamer chairs 
with that green expression of profound indifference 
which marks the dreaded seasickness. 'To Frederick’s 
astonishment, he himself felt not the least trace of 
nausea, and only the sight of his fellow-passengers’ 
misery caused him to realise that the Roland was not 
gliding through smooth waters, but was distinctly pitch- 
ing and rolling. 

He walked around the ladies’ parlour, past the en- 
trance of an extra cabin, and took his stand under the 
bridge, breasting the steely, salt sea wind. On the 
deck below, the steerage passengers had settled them- 
selves as far as the bow. ‘Though the Roland was run- 
“ning under full steam, it was not making its maximum 
speed, prevented by the long, heavy swells that the wind 
raised and hurled against the bow. Across the forward 
lower deck there was a second bridge, probably for 
emergency. Frederick felt strongly tempted to stand 
up there on that empty bridge. 

It aroused some attention, of course, when he de- 
scended down among the steerage passengers and then 
crawled up the iron rungs of the ladder to the windy 


20 ATLANTIS 


height. But that did not trouble him. All at once 
such a madcap spirit had come over him, he felt so 
happy and refreshed; as if he had never had to suffer 
dull cares, or put up with the whims of a hysterical 
wife, or practise medicine in a musty, out-of-the-way 
corner of the country. Never, it seemed to him, had 
he studied bacteriology, still less, suffered a fiasco. 
Never had he been so in love as he appeared to have 
been only a short time before. 

He laughed, bending his head before the gale, filled 
his lungs with the salty air, and felt better and stronger. 

A burst of laughter from the steerage passengers 
mounted to his ears. At the same instant something 
lashed him in the face, something that he had seen 
rearing, white and tremendous, before the bow. It al- 
most blinded him, and he felt the wet penetrate to his 
skin. The first wave had swept overboard. 

Who would not find it humiliating to have his sublime 
meditations interrupted in such a tricky, brutal way? 
A moment before, he felt as if to be a Viking were his 
real calling, and now, inwardly shaking and shivering, 
amid general ridicule, he crawled ignominiously down the 
iron ladder. 

He was wearing a round grey hat. His overcoat 
was padded and lined with silk. His gloves were of 
dressed kid, his buttoned boots of thin leather. All 
these garments were now drenched with a cold, salty 
wash, Leaving a damp trail behind, he made his way, 
not exactly a glorious way, through the steerage pas- 
sengers, who rolled with laughter. In the midst of his 
annoyance Frederick heard a voice calling his name. 
He looked up and scarcely trusted his eyes on seeing 
a large fellow in whom he thought he recognised a peas- 
ant from the Heuscheuer Mountains, a peasant with an 


ATLANTIS 21 


evil reputation for drunkenness and all sorts of mis- 
deeds. 

** Wilke, is that you? ” 

“ Yes, Doctor, ’m Wilke.” . . 

The little town in which Fredérick had practised was 
called Plassenberg an der Heuscheuer, that is, Plassen- 
berg by the Heuscheuer Mountains, a range in the 
county of Glatz where excellent sandstone is quarried. 
The people of the district loved Frederick both as a 
man and a physician. He was the wonder-worker who 
had performed a number of splendid cures and he 
was the human being, without pride of caste, whose 
heart beat warmly for the good of the lowliest of his 
fellowmen. They loved his natural way with them, 
always cordial, always outspoken, and sometimes 
harsh. 

Wilke was bound for New England to join his 
brother. 

‘The people in the Heuscheuer,” he said, “‘ are mean 
and ungrateful.” 

Shy and distrustful at home, even toward Frederick, 
who had treated him for his last knife wound on his 
neck, his manner here, with the other passengers crossing 
the great waters, was frank and trustful. He was like 
a well-behaved child chattering freely. 

** You didn’t get the thanks you deserved, either, Doc- 
tor von Kammacher,” he said in his broad dialect, rich 
in vowel sounds, and recounted a number of cases, of 
which Frederick had not known, in which good had been 
repaid by evil tattle. ‘The people around Plassen- 
berg are not fit for men like you and me. Men like you 
and me belong in America, the land of liberty.” 

Elsewhere, Frederick would have resented being placed 
in the same category as this rowdy, for whom, he re- 


22 ATLANTIS 


called, the police were searching. But here he felt no 
indignation. On the contrary, he was pleasantly sur- 
prised, as if by an unexpected meeting with a good 
friend. 
_._. “ The world’s a small place,” said Frederick, passing 
over the theme of ingratitude and the land of liberty, 
“the world’s a small place. Yet I am surprised to see 
you here. But I’m wet to the skin, and have to go 
change my clothes.” 

On his way to the cabin, on the promenade deck, he 
encountered the blond captain of the Roland, Von Kes- 
sel, who presented himself to Frederick. 

“The weather is not quite up to mark,” he said by 
way of excuse for the little mishap on the lower bridge. 
“Tf you enjoy standing in front there, you’d better 
put on one of our oilskins.” 

Now that the vessel’s movement was more accentu- 
ated, the cabin, in which Frederick changed his clothes, 
was a problematical place of abode. The light came 
from a round port-hole of heavy glass. When the wall 
with the port-hole in it rose and turned inward like a 
slanting roof, the sunlight from a rift between the 
clouds in the sky fell wpon the mahogany berth oppo- 
site. Sitting on the edge of the lower berth, Frederick 
tried to steady himself, holding his head bent to keep 
from striking against his upper berth, and frantically 
endeavouring not to follow the receding movement of 
the wall behind. The cabin was rolling in unison with 
the vessel’s movement. Sometimes it seemed to Fred- 
erick as if the port-hole wall were the ceiling, and the 
ceiling the right wall; then again as if the right wall 
were the ceiling, and the ceiling the port-hole wall, while 
the actual port-hole wall, as if inviting him to jump, 
shoved itself at right angles under his feet — during 


ATLANTIS 23 


which the port-hole was wholly under water and the 
cabin in darkness. 

It is no easy matter to dress and undress in an oscil- 
lating room. That the vessel’s motion could have 
changed so markedly within the one hour since he left 
the cabin, astonished Frederick. ‘The simple operation 
of drawing off his boots and trousers, finding others in 
his trunk, and putting them on again became a gymnas- 
tic feat. He had to laugh, and comparisons occurred 
to him, which made him laugh still more. But his 
laughter was not heartfelt. Each time he received a 
knock, or had to jump to regain his balance, he mut- 
tered exclamations and instinctively contrasted all this 
with the comfortable waking up from sleep in his own 
house. Groaning and labouring, he said to himself: 

“My whole personality is being shaken through and 
through. I was mistaken when I supposed that I had 
already got my shaking up these last two years. I 
thought fate was shaking me. Now, both my fate and 
I are being shaken. I thought there was tragedy in 
me. Now, I and my tragedy are bowling about in this 
creaking cage, and are being disgraced in our own eyes. 

“TI have a habit of pondering over everything. I 
think about the beak of the ship, which buries itself 
in each new wave. I think about the laughter of the 
steerage passengers, those poor, poor people, who, I 
am sure, scarcely have a gay time of it. My sousing 
was a treat to them. I think of the rapscallion, Wilke, 
who married a humpbacked seamstress, ran through her 
savings, and abused her daily — and I almost embraced 
him. I think of the blond Teuton, Captain von Kessel, 
that handsome man, somewhat too insipid-looking and 
too thick-set, who is our absolute lord and whom we 
trust at frst glance. And, finally, I think about my 


24 ATLANTIS 


zonstant laughing and admit to myself that laughing 
is a sensible thing only in the rarest circumstances.” 

Frederick continued a conversation with himself in a 
similar strain for a while, and cast bitter, ironical re- 
flections upon the passion that had brought him on this 
trip. He had actually been robbed of his will; and in 
this condition, in that narrow cabin, surrounded by 
the ocean, it seemed to him as if his life, and his foolish 
impotence, were being held up to the rudest ridicule. 

When Frederick went up again, there were still a 
number of persons on deck. ‘The stewards had fastened 
the steamer chairs to the walls, some of them having 
slipped and left the occupants, ladies and gentlemen, 
with the blue marks of their fall. Refreshments were 
' being served. It was interesting to see how the stew- 
ards, carrying six or eight full cups, balanced them- 
selves over the heaving deck. 

Frederick looked about in vain for Hahlstrém and his 
daughter. 

In walking the full length of the deck several times, 
examining all the passengers with the utmost care and 
circumspection, he noticed the pretty young English- 
woman, whom he had seen for the first time in the read- 
ing-room of the hotel in Southampton. She was 
wrapped in rugs and furs and snugly settled in a spot 
shielded from the wind and warmed by the two huge 
smoke-stacks. She was receiving the attention of a very 
lively young man sitting beside her. Each time Fred- 
erick passed, the young man scrutinised him sharply. 
Suddenly he jumped up, held out his hand, and intro- 
duced himself as Hans Fiillenberg of Berlin. Though 
Frederick could not Yécall-ever having met him before, 
the good-looking, dashing young fellow succeeded in 
convincing him that they had both been present at a 





ATLANTIS 25 


certain evening affair in Berlin. He told Frederick he 
was going to the United States to take a position in 
a mining region near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He 
was a wide-awake young man and, what is more, a Ber- 
linese, and had great notions of his own importance. 
Frederick’s reputation in Berlin society inspired him 
with tremendous respect. Frederick responded to his 
advances courteously, and allowed him to recount all ° 
the latest Berlin news, as if he himself had not left the 
German capital only a week before. He realised he 
could depend upon Fiillenberg’s garrulousness for ry 
item of interest. 

It quickly became evident that Hans Fiillenberg was 
an amiable, giddy-headed young buck, knowing well how 
to deal with the ladies. When Frederick called his at- 
tention to the fact that the Englishwoman was casting 
impatient glance’ toward him, visibly eager for his re- 
turn, he complacently winked his eye as if to say: 

“She won’t run away. And if she does, there are 
plenty more.” 


V 


“Do you know, Doctor von Kammacher,” Fiillenberg 
said suddenly, “ that little Hahlstrém is on board? ” 

* What little Hahlstrém do you mean? ” asked Fred- 
erick coolly. 

Hans Fiillenberg could not contain his surprise that 
Frederick should have forgotten little Hahlstrém. He | 
was sure of having seen him in the Kiinstlerhaus in Ber- 
lin when Ingigerd danced her dance there for the first 
time, the dance that then aroused admiration only in 
the artist world, but later became the sensation of all 
Berlin. He described the affair. 


26 JATLANTIS 


“The pick of the Berlin artists were standing around 
the room and on the stairs in informal groups, leaving 
the centre of the floor clear. Even Menzel and Begas 
were there. A special exhibition was to open soon, and 
the walls were hung with a collection of Bécklin pictures. 
The name of the dance was ‘ Mara, or the Spider’s 
‘Victim.’ 

“I tell you, Doctor von Kammacher,” the young man 
went on, “ if you didn’t see that dance, you missed some- 
thing. In the first place, little Ingigerd’s costume was 
very scanty, and then her performance was really won- 
derful. There are no two opinions about it. A huge ar- 
tificial flower was set in the middle of the room, and the 
little thing ran up and smelt of it. She felt all about 
the flower with closed eyes, vibrating as if with the 
gauzy wings of a bee. Suddenly she opened her eyes 
and turned to a rigid statue of stone. On the flower 
was squatting a huge spider! She darted like an arrow 
to the farthest corner of the room. Even in the first 
part of the dance she had seemed to float without weight 
in the air; but the way sheer horror blew her across that 
room made her seem like nothing but a vision.” 

Frederick von Kammacher had seen her dance the 
dreadful dance, not only at the matinée in the Kiinstler- 
haus, but eighteen times again. While Fiillenberg was 
trying to express his impression with “ great,” “ tremen- 
dous,”’ * glorious,” and similarly strong epithets, Fred- 
erick saw the whole dance over again with his mind’s 
eye. He saw how the childlike body, after cowering 
and trembling a while in the corner of the room, ap- 
proached the flower again to the accompaniment of 
music played by a tomtom, a cymbal, and a flute. Some- 
thing which was not pleasure drew her to it. The first 
time she had traced her way to the source of the per- 


ATLANTIS Q7 


fume by sniffing fragrance in the air. Her mouth had 
been open, the nostrils of her fine little nose had quiv- 
ered. Hans Fiillenberg was correct in his observation 
that her eyes, as she held her head back, had been closed. 
The second time, she seemed to be drawn against her 
will by a gruesome something, which alternately aroused 
fear, horror, and curiosity. She held her eyes wide 
open, and now and then covered them with both hands, 
as if in dread of seeing something hideous. 

But when she came quite close to the flower, all fear 
suddenly seemed to drop away from her. She hopped 
for joy and laughed — she had been needlessly alarmed. 
How could a fat, immobile spider squatting on a flower 
be dangerous to a creature with wings? This part of 
her dance was so graceful, so full of droll, bubbling, 
childlike merriment, that the audience laughed tears of 
delight. 

Now, however, a new phase of the dance began, in- 
troduced in a thoughtful strain. Having danced her- 
self to satiety and intoxicated herself with the flower’s 
perfume, Mara, with movements of agreeable fatigue, 
made as if to lay herself to rest, but delayed here and 
there to brush from her body something like the threads 
of a spider’s web, at first serenely and pensively, then 
with growing disquiet, which communicated itself to the 
onlookers. ‘The child paused, reflected an instant, and 
apparently was about to laugh at herself because of 
the fears that had arisen in her soul; but the next min- 
ute she paled with fright, and made a dexterous leap, 
as if to free herself from a trap. Her blond hair tossed 
back in Menadic waves turned into a flaming stream. 
Her whole appearance evoked involuntary cries of ad- 
miration. 


The flight began. And now the theme of the dance 


28 ATLANTIS 


was Mara’s entanglement in the threads the spider wove 
about her, which gradually choked her to death. No 
dancer has ever executed such an idea with equal skill 
and fidelity. 

The little creature freed her foot from the meshes, - 
only to find her neck entwined; she clutched at the © 
threads about her throat, only to find her hands entan- 
gled; she tore at the cobweb, she bent her body, she 
slipped away; she beat with her fists, she raged, and 
only enmeshed herself the more tightly in the horrible 
skein; finally she lay fast bound. During this last 
phase of the dance, her artist audience stood there rigid, 
breathless, suffocating with a sense of horror. 

It was not until nearly the end that Frederick von 
Kammacher felt that his fate was forever linked with 
this girl, The feeling grew stronger during the few 
moments that remained before the conclusion of the 
performance. The poison of infatuation came from the 
expression of her face. He noted precisely how it forced 
its way into him and how his whole being suddenly 
grew sick. When little Ingigerd Hahlstrém once more 
opened her eyes with a look of abysmal dismay, and 
fastened them in helpless inquiry upon the spider, calmly 
drinking her blood away, an inner voice seemed to com- 
mand Frederick to become her compassionate knight, 
saviour, and protector. 


VI 


Since, in Fiillenberg’s opinion, Frederick von Kam- 
macher was not sufficiently interested in the dancer, 
Ingigerd Hahlstrém, he mentioned several other recent 
Berlin celebrities also on the Roland on their way to 
the United States. There was Geheimrat Lars, a man 


ATLANTIS 29 


well-known in art circles, who often cast the deciding 
vote in purchases of works of art by the government. 
He was going to America to visit museums, private and 
public, and study the art situation in general. There 
was Professor Toussaint, an eminent sculptor, some of 
whose monuments had been erected in several German 
cities, chiefly Berlin, works done in a wishy-washy Ber- 
nini style. 

** Toussaint,” Fiillenberg, who rome to be fairly 
loaded with Berlin gossip, explained, “ needs money. 
He needs the money that his wife spends and the social 
season in Berlin swallows up. He and his wife and his 
wife’s maid are all travelling free on his reputation. 
When he lands in New York, he won’t have enough in 
his pocket even to pay his hotel bill for three days.” 

Fiillenberg pointed out the sculptor, Toussaint. He 
was lying in a steamer chair, rising and falling in uni- 
son with the Roland. As Frederick turned to look at 
him, he noticed an odd man without arms being led 
across the deck by his attendant, who grasped him by 
his collar and carefully dragged him through a small 
door close by into the smoking-room. 

“That man’s a vaudeville star,” Fiillenberg contin- 
ued with his descriptive catalogue. “ He will appear 
in New York with Webster and Forster.” 

Some stewards came oscillating across the deck to 
serve the chilly passengers with bowls of hot bouillon. 
After Fiillenberg had seen to it that his lady was duly 
served, he deserted her and went with Frederick to the 
smoking-room. Here, of course, loud talking and to- 
bacco smoke prevailed. The two gentlemen lit their 
cigars. In one corner of the small room, some men were 
playing skat, and at several tables, German and English 
politics were being thrashed out. The main theme of 


30 ATLANTIS 


discussion was the rivalry between America and Europe. 
Wilhelm, the ship’s doctor, with whom Frederick had 
become acquainted at breakfast, came in from his morn- 
ing inspection of the steerage, and seated himself beside 
Frederick. 

“There are two hundred Russian Jews emigrating 
to the United States or Canada,” he told him, “ thirty 
Polish families, and about the same number of German 
families from the south, north, and east of Germany. 
Altogether there are nearly four hundred steerage pas- 
sengers, among them five babies at the breast and fifty 
children between the ages of one and fifteen.” 

Doctor Wilhelm invited Frederick to accompany him | 
the next day on his tour of inspection. He was a man 
of not more than twenty-six. He had a fair complexion 
and wore glasses. His manner was somewhat stiff. 
Ever since he had passed his examinations, two years 
before, he had been a physician on a vessel. Once he 
had taken the trip to Japan, once to South America, 
and several times to the United States. Frederick, of 
course, immediately thought of his dying friend, George 
Rasmussen, put his hand in his pocket, and presented 
his new colleague with Simon Arzt cigarettes. 

The cigarettes furnished a starting-point to tell all 
about George Rasmussen ; and when Doctor Wilhelm had 
learned everything about him, except his name, and then 
learned his name, too, the world again turned out to be 
a very small place. Doctor Wilhelm was a friend of 
George Rasmussen’s. They had studied together, one 
semester in Bonn and one semester in Jena, and had 
belonged to the same club in Jena. The last few years 
they had even corresponded. Naturally, the discovery 
instantly brought the two physicians closer. 

The tone in the smoking-room was that of jolly ca- 


ATLANTIS 31 


rousals in German Bierstuben. The men let themselves ~ 
go, talked in loud voices, and gave rein to that coarse 
humour and noisy gaiety in which time flies for them 
and which to many of them is a sort of narcotic, giving 
them rest and ease for a while from the mad chase of 
existence. Neither Frederick nor Doctor Wilhélm was 
averse to this tone, which revived old memories of their 
student days, when they had become accustomed to it. 
Though to the average student the carousals, now taboo, 
may be an evil, physically and intellectually, they are 
the time and place, nevertheless, at which the phceenix of 
German idealism soars up from tobacco smoke and beer 
froth to wing its flight to the sun. 

Hans Fiillenberg soon felt bored in the company of 
the two physicians who, in fact, had completely for- 
gotten him; and he slipped away, back to his lady. 

“When Germans meet,” he said to her, “they 
must scream and drink Briiderschaft until they get 
tipsy.” ay 

Doctor Wilhelm seemed to be proud of the smoking- 
room. - 

“The captain,” he said, ‘is very strict about not 
having the gentlemen disturbed. He has given absolute 
orders that women under no circumstances, not even 
if they smoke, are to be permitted here.” 

The room had two metal doors, one on the starboard 
and one on the port side. The person entering or leay- 
ing had to contend violently with the wind and the mo- 
tion of the vessel. The stewards had mastered the art 
perfectly. Shortly before eleven o’clock, Captain von 
Kessel appeared. It was his custom to visit the room 
at about this time every day. After giving friendly or 
curt answers, as the case might be, to the usual ques- 
tions regarding the weather and the prospects for a 


62 ATLANTIS 


good or bad crossing, he seated himself at the same 
table as the physicians. 

“A seaman was lost in you,” he said to Frederick. 

“T think you must be mistaken,” Frederick rejoined. 
**T have had quite enough of a salt water sousing. I 
assure you, I am not longing for another.” 

A few hours before, a pilot-boat from the French 
coast had brought the latest news, which the captain 
proceeded to recount in a calm, quiet manner. 

* A vessel of the Hamburg-American line, a twin- 
screw steamer, the Nordmania, running for only a year, 
had a mishap about six hundred miles out from New 
York. It turned back and reached Hoboken safely. 
The sea was comparatively calm, but all of a sudden a 
- waterspout arose close to the ship, and a great mass of 
water burst over the ladies’ saloon, crushing through its 
roof and the roof of the deck below and hurling a piano 
down into the very hold.” 

The other piece of news he told was that Schweninger 
was in Friedrichsruh with Bismarck and that Bismarck’s 
death was being expected hourly. Though both Doctor 
Wilhelm and Frederick von Kammacher disapproved of 
Bismarck’s exceptional anti-Socialist law and its conse- 
quences, they were filled with hero worship of the man, 
Doctor Wilhelm the more so, since the home of his child- 
hood stood on the edge of Sachsenwald, scarcely an 
hour’s ride from Friedrichsruh. He was choke-full, of 
course, of local Bismarck anecdotes and began to reel 
them off. 

* Are you annoyed?” Bismarck asked his barber, 
when he came in one day with his moustache twirled up- 
ward in the new fashion of the race tracks. ‘‘ A mous- 
tache trimmed and twisted like that to me looks as if it 
were terribly annoyed and for no reason.” 


ATLANTIS 33 


Vit 


Tue international gong had not been introduced on the 
Roland. ‘The trumpeter of the band sent two blasts 
across the promenade deck and through the corridors 
of the first cabin as a signal for the midday meal. ‘The 
first blast entered with the howling of the wind into the 
close, noisy, crowded smoking saloon. The attendant 
of the man without arms came to conduct his master 
across the deck again. Frederick watched the armless 
man with great interest. He seemed to be extraordina- 
rily brisk and quick-witted. He spoke English, French 
and German with equal fluency, and to everybody’s de- 
light parried the impertinences of a saucy young 
American, whose disrespectfulness did not yield even 
before the sacred person of the captain; for which the 
dignified skipper sometimes rewarded him by staring 
over his head like a lion over a yapping terrier. _ 
The table in the dining-room was in the form of a 
trident, with the closed end at the rear and the three 
prongs pointing to the prow. Opposite the centre 
prong was a false mantel with a mirror, where was 
posted the elegant figure in blue livery of Mr. Pfund- 
ner, the head-steward. He was a man of between forty 
and fifty. With his white, artificially curled hair, which 
gave the impression of being powdered, he resembled 
a major-domo of Louis XIV’s time. As he stood there, 
head erect, looking over the swaying hall, he seemed 
to be the special squire of Captain von Kessel, who 
sat at the end of the middle prong, in the capacity 
both of host and most honoured guest. Next to the 
captain sat Doctor Wilhelm and the first mate. Fred- 
erick, having found favour in the captain’s eyes, was 


assigned a place next to Doctor Wilhelm. The ship 


34 ATLANTIS 


was no longer tossing so violently, and the dining-room, 
in consequence, was fairly well filled. The last ones 
to enter were the card players of the smoking-room, 
who came storming in. At the closed end of the trident, 
Frederick saw Mr. Hahlstrém, but without his daugh- 
tér. 

Many stewards very quickly and deftly served a 
vast quantity of dishes. Wine was also placed on the 
table. Within a short while the corks were popping 
from champagne bottles in the vicinity of the card 
players. In a gallery the band played without inter- 
ruption. ‘There were seven numbers on the printed mu- 
sic programme, which bore the name of the vessel, the 
date, and a picture of negroes in evening dress and high 
hats plucking at banjos. 


VItl 


Sritu the forward part of the vessel and, along with 
it, the dining-room with all its dishes, plates, and bot- 
tles, with its gentlemen guests and lady guests and the 
steward-waiters, with its fish and vegetables and meats 
and drinks and brass band, were lifted high on the 
mountain top of one wave and plunged deep in the 
trough of the next. The mighty working of the en- 
gines quivered through the ship. The dining-room 
walls had to cope with the onslaught of the opposing 
element. 

The electric lights were turned on full. The grey 
of the cloudy winter day did not suffice to illuminate 
the room, especially since what brightness there was 
outside was every instant shut off by the water splash- 
ing against the port-holes. 

Frederick enjoyed the daring of it—to be dining 


ATLANTIS 35 


in festivity to the accompaniment of frivolous music 
in the illuminated bowels of this monster, this Roland. 
From time to time the mighty ship seemed on the point 
of encountering invincible resistance. A combination 
of opposing forces would rise up against the stem, pro- 
ducing the effect of a solid body, a veritable mountain- 
side. At such moments the noise of the talking would 
die down, and many pale faces would exchange glances 
and turn to the captain or to the prow of the vessel. 
But Captain von Kessel and his officers were absorbed 
in their meal and paid no attention to the phenomenon, 
which for moments at a time brought the Roland to a 
quivering standstill. ‘They never looked up, but kept 
to their eating and talking, even when, as often hap- 
pened, tremendous masses of water hurled themselves 
against the walls, threatening to crash through what 
seemed like pitifully thin partitions for excluding that 
mighty, wrathful element, thundering and roaring with 
suppressed hate and fury. 

During the meal Frederick’s eyes were constantly 
drawn to Hahlstrém’s tall figure. Though his hair was 
touched with grey, he was certainly still to be counted 
a handsome man. Next to him sat a man of about 
thirty-five, with a bushy beard, dark, bushy eyebrows, 
and dark, deep-set eyes, which sometimes darted a sharp, 
_ piercing glance at Frederick — at least so it seemed 
to Frederick. The man troubled him. He _ noticed 
that Hahlstrém graciously permitted the stranger to 
entertain him and pay him court. 

* Do you know that tall, fair-haired man, Doctor 
von Kammacher? ” the physician asked. In his con- 
fusion Frederick failed to answer, looking helplessly at 
Doctor Wilhelm. ‘‘ He is a Swede. His name is Hahl- 
strém,”? Doctor Wilhelm continued. “A peculiar fel- 


36 ATLANTIS 


low. Earlier in his life he made a mess of your and 
my profession. He is travelling with his daughter, 
not an uninteresting little miss. She’s been dreadfully 
seasick, and hasn’t left the horizontal in her berth 
since we set sail from Bremen. That dark fellow sit- 
ting next to Hahlstrém seems to be something like, well, 
let us say, her fiancé.” 

_ “By the way, what do you do for seasickness? ” 
Frederick asked hastily, to conceal his dismay and turn 
the conversation. 


IX 


* You here, Doctor von Kammacher? I can scarcely 
trust my eyes.” At the bottom of the companionway 
Frederick felt Hahlstrém tackle him, just as he was 
about to mount to deck. 

“ Why, Mr. Hahlstrém, what a peculiar coincidence! 
It’s as if the whole of Berlin had agreed to emigrate 
to America!” Frederick exclaimed, simulating surprise 
with somewhat forced liveliness. 

** May I present Mr. Achleitner? Mr. Achleitner is 
an architect from Vienna. 

The man with the piercing eyes smiled with an air 
of interest, holding fast to the brass balustrade to keep 
from being hurled against the wall. 

The door of a rather gloomy saloon opened on the 
first landing. It bore the misleading sign “ smoking- 
room,” misleading because the smokers never used it, 
far preferring the cosey little saloon on deck. A brown 
upholstered bench ran around the brown, wainscoted 
walls. Kneeling on the bench one could look out through 
three or four port-holes upon the seething and boiling 
of the waves. The entire floor space between the 


ATLANTIS 37 


benches was taken up by a table finished in a dark 
stain. 

“This room is a horrid hole,” said Hahlstrém. ‘ It 
positively makes me creepy.” 

A loud, trumpet-like, laughing voice called out from 
inside the room: 

“I say, Hahlstrém, if this sort of weather holds 
out, neither your daughter nor I will keep the first day 
of our engagement with Webster and Forster. We’re . 
not even making eight knots. Perhaps I’ll be able to 
manage. A big dose of salt water doesn’t hurt me. 
To-day is the twenty-fifth. If we reach Hoboken at 
eight o’clock the evening of the first of February, I 
can appear for my act in perfect serenity at nine o’clock ; 
but that frail blossom of yours can’t. She will cer- 
tainly need a few days to recover from the hardships 
of this trip.” 

The three men entered the smoking-room. Fred- 
erick had already recognised the voice as belonging to 
the man without arms, who, he learned later, from 
Hahlstr6m, was a world-renowned celebrity. For more 
than ten years the bill-boards of every great city in 
the world had been displaying simply his name, Arthur 
Stoss, which alone sufficed to draw throngs to the 
theatres. His special art consisted in doing with his 
feet whatever other people do with their hands. 

The first sight of him, of course, was repellent; but 
in the smoking-room on deck Frederick had got over 
his first repulsion and had become interested in his 
personality. Yet the situation in which he now beheld, 
him was so novel, so remarkable, almost to the point 
of improbability, that he had difficulty in concealing 
his amazement. Arthur Stoss was eating lunch. 
Since this room was so little used and since a man forced 


38 ATLANTIS 


to handle his knife and fork with his feet could not 
be permitted to eat in the public dining-room, they 


served Arthur Stoss with his meals here. To the three - 


onlookers it had the value of an artistic performance 
to see how the actor managed to manipulate his instru- 
ments with his clean, bare toes — and that despite the 
pitching of the vessel — meanwhile, in the best of: hu- 
mour, uttering the wittiest remarks as bite after bite 
disappeared down his throat. He began to banter 
Hahlstrém and Achleitner, sometimes in rather caustic 
fashion, while exchanging glances with Frederick, as 
if he thought vastly more of him than of the other two 
men, who soon withdrew from his attacks to go on 
deck. 

** My name is Stoss.” 

** Mine, Von Kammacher.” 

“It’s very good of you to keep me company. That 
Hahlstrém and his henchman are disgusting. Though 
I have been an actor for twenty years, I can’t stand 
the sight of such weedy weaklings, who don’t do any- 
thing themselves and exploit their daughters. . They 
have the effect of an emetic on me. For all that, he 
plays the great man. He has no talent, so he is going 
to boil soup from his daughter’s bones. Yet he goes 
about nose up in the air. If he sees a dollar in the 
dirt and somebody of distinction is looking, he will let 
it lie. He won’t pick it up. There is no denying he 
has an attractive appearance. He has the stuff in 
him for a very clever, fashionable swindler. But he 
would rather take it easy and live off his daughter and 
his daughter’s admirers. It’s astonishing how many 
people are willing to make asses of themselves. There’s 
that Achleitner — look at the condescension with which 
Hahlstrém treats him and the lofty way Hahlstrém 


ATLANTIS 39 


plays the réle of benefactor! He used to be a riding- 
master. ‘Then he got mixed up in some quack cure, a 
combination of Swedish gymnastics and hydrothera- 
peutics, and his wife left him, a fine, hard-working 
woman, now doing splendidly as head of a department 
at Worth’s in Paris.” 

Frederick felt drawn up-stairs to Hahlstrém. The 
man’s past as Stoss described it was at that moment 
a matter of indifference to him. But Stoss’s remark 
about the asses some people are willing to make of 
themselves sent a fleeting red to his face. | 

Arthur Stoss grew more and more communicative. 
He sat like an ape, a resemblance impossible to avoid 
when a man uses his feet instead of his hands. When 
he had finished his meal, he stuck a cigar in his mouth, 
like any other gentleman. In him the likeness to an 
ape was accentuated by the breadth and flatness of 
his nose and the formation of his heavy jaws. He 
looked like a fair-skinned orang-outang. However, his 
high, broad forehead gave him the mark of the human 
intellect. He had no beard, that is, he had never in his 
life, probably, had to remove a hair from his parch- 
menty, freckled, yellow skin. His cheek bones were 
prominent, and his head unusually large. Though his 
general appearance made a most energetic, by no means 
effeminate impression, there still was something eunuch- 
like about it, the high pitch of his voice adding to this 
impression. While casting about for an opportunity to 
escape the monster’s spell, Frederick was nevertheless 
deeply interested in him from a medical and anthro- 
pological standpoint. ‘The man, without doubt, was an 
extremely instructive specimen of abnormality. His 
facies was that of an intermediate sexual stage. 

** People like Hahlstrém,” he continued, ‘ are actu- 


) 


40 ATLANTIS 


ally not worthy of the healthy limbs with which God 
endowed them. Of course, even if one has a figure like 
a statue by Myron, it is awkward if there is too little 
up here ”— he tapped his forehead. “ That is what is 
the trouble with Hahlstrém. There is too little up here. 
Look at me. I don’t say everybody, but at least nine 
out of ten, in my position would have succumbed as a 
child. Instead of. that, I have a wife, I own a villa in 
the Kahlenberg Mountains, I support three children 
of my step-brother and an older sister of my wife, who 
was a singer and lost her voice. I am absolutely inde- 
pendent. I remain on the stage because I want to bring 
my wealth up to a certain point. If the Roland were 
to sink to-day, I could go down with perfect equanimity. 
I have done my work. I have invested my money at a . 
high rate of interest. My wife, my wife’s sister, and 
my step-brother’s children are all provided for.” 

The actor’s attendant appeared, to help his master 
to his cabin for his afternoon nap. 

‘** My days are mapped out like a time-table,” Stoss 
explained. ‘‘ My attendant here, Bulke, served his four 
years in the German navy. With all the ocean cross- 
ings I have to make, I couldn’t get along with a man 
who wasn’t used to the water. I need a perfect water 
rat.” 


x 


A rte spell of dizziness came over Frederick when he 
went to his cabin to fetch his heavy overcoat. On deck 
it was very quiet as compared with the morning. Hahl- 
strém was nowhere to be seen, and Frederick seated 
himself on a bench near the entrance to the main 
companionway. With his collar turned up and his hat 


ATLANTIS 41 


drawn over his forehead, he succumbed to the state of 
drowsiness characteristic of sea trips, in which, despite 
the heaviness of one’s eyelids, one feels and perceives 
with a restless lucidity of the inner vision. Images, | 
chase through one’s mind, a kaleidoscopic stream, shift- 
ing incessantly, going and coming, and finally reducing 
the soul to a state of torture. ‘The sybaritic meal with 
its clatter of plates, its talking and music, was still 
whirling through Frederick’s brain. He heard the 
vaudeville actor declaiming. The half-ape was holding 
Mara in his arms. Hahlstrém in all his height was 
looking on, smiling. ‘The waves were rolling heavily 
against the tiny dining-room and pressing hard on the 
creaking hull. Bismarck, a huge figure in armour, and 
Roland, the valiant warrior in armour, were laughing 
grimly and conversing. Frederick saw both wading 
through the sea. Roland was holding Mara, the tiny 
dancer, on his right palm. Every now and then Fred- 
erick shivered. The ship careened, a stiff southeaster 
heeling her to starboard. The waves hissed and foamed. 
The rhythm produced by the rise and fall of the pis- 
tons finally seemed to turn into the rhythm of Fred- 
erick’s own body. The working of the screw was 
distinctly audible. At regular intervals the stern would 
rise out of the water, carrying with it the screw, which 
would then buzz in the air, and Frederick would hear 
Wilke from the Heuscheuer saying: 

* Doctor, if only the screw doesn’t snap.” 

Finally, all the machinery of the vessel seemed to be 
turning in his brain. Sometimes one engineer in the 
engine-room would call out to another, and the clang 
of the metal shovels when the stokers fed the furnace 
penetrated to the deck. 

All of a sudden Frederick jumped to his feet; he 


42 ATLANTIS 


thought he saw a ghost, or a dead-alive corpse, reeling 
up the companionway and making for him. It was the 
clothing manufacturer whom he had met at Southamp- 
ton, looking more like a man in his death throes than 
one already dead. He gave Frederick a ghastly glance 
of unconsciousness and let a steward support him to 
the nearest steamer chair. 

“Tf that man,’ Frederick thought, “is not to be 
reckoned among the heroes, then there never have been 
any heroes in the world.” 

** Each time I cross,” the clothing manufacturer had 
said, **I suffer from seasickness, from the moment I 
set foot on the ship until I leave it.” 

And what horrible extremes of suffering he had to go 
through ! | 

Opposite Frederick, at the entrance to the compan- 
ionway, stood a cabin-boy. From time to time at the 
signal of a whistle from the bridge, he would disappear 
to receive orders from the first or second mate, or what- 
ever officer happened to be on duty. Often an hour and 
more would pass without the summons, and the handsome 
lad had plenty of time to meditate upon himself and his 
Jot in life. Frederick felt sorry for him as he stood 
there on guard, bored and chilly; so he spoke to him. 

He learned that his name was Max Pander and that 
he came from near the Black Forest. The next logical 
question to put to him was whether he liked his work. 
The boy answered with a resigned smile, which height- 
ened the charm of his handsome head, but showed he 
had none too much passion for the seaman’s calling. 

“There is not much in travelling on steamers,” he 
observed. ‘A real sailor belongs on board a sailing 
vessel. There is a mate of mine here on the Roland,” 
he added in a tone of great admiration, “ who is only 


ATLANTIS 43 


eighteen years old and has already been on two long, 
dangerous trips on a schooner.” 

To Frederick, it seemed as if lasting passion for the 
sea — the sea, which was already making him miserable 
— must be a conventional myth. It was three o’clock. 
He had been on board only nineteen or twenty hours, 
and already found it a petty hardship. “ If the Roland 
doesn’t make better time,”’ he calculated, “I shall have 
to go through the same difficulties of existence eight 
or nine times twenty-four hours. But I will get back 
to land and remain there, while Pander, the cabin-boy, 
will have to return across the ocean a few days after 
landing.” 

“If someone were to find you a good position on 
land,” Frederick asked, “‘ would you give up your po- 
sition here? ” | 

“Yes, indeed,” said Pander, emphasising his reply 
with a decided nod of his head. 

“ A nasty southeaster,”’ said Doctor Wilhelm, passing 
by beside the tall figure of the first mate. ‘ How would 
you like to come to my room? We can smoke and have 
some coffee there without being disturbed.” 


XI 


Wauxine along the deck below the promenade deck, 
one passed a covered gangway on both the starboard 
and port sides, into which opened various official rooms, 
including the officers’ cabins, among them Doctor Wil- 
helm’s, a comparatively spacious room, containing a 
bed, a table, chairs, and a well-equipped medicine closet. 

The gentlemen had scarcely seated themselves when 
a Red Cross sister, who worked under Doctor Wilhelm’s 


Ad ATLANTIS 


direction, appeared and gave a report, smiling as she 
did so, of a woman patient in the second cabin. 

“In my two years of practice on a steamer, this is 
the fifth time I have had a case like this,’? Doctor Wil- 
helm said after the sister had left. ‘Girls who can 
no longer conceal the consequences of their mistake and 
are at loss what to do, take passage on a ship, when 
it is almost certain that the event they expect will 
occur. Such girls, of course, never suspect that they 
are typical on all sea trips, and are surprised when our 
stewards and stewardesses sometimes treat them with 
corresponding respect. I myself, of course, always do 
all I can for the poor creatures, and I usually succeed 
in inducing the captains not to make an announcement 
of the birth, in case there is one. Once a girl about 
whom we could not help giving notice was found pangs 
to the window sash in.her lodgings near the harbour.” 

Over their coffee and Simon Arzt cigarettes, the whole 
woman question was unrolled. 

“So far,” said Frederick, “the woman question is 
nothing but the old-maid question, at least in the way 
women conceive it. The sterility of old maids steril- 
ises the whole movement.” 

Frederick developed his ideas. But tormenting vi- 
sions of Mara and her admirer pursued him, and he 
discoursed mechanically, his reasoning on the woman 
question having become a matter of rote to him. 

“ The vital germinal spot of each reform in women’s 
rights,” he argued with apparent liveliness, blowing 
clouds of smoke, ** must be the maternal instinct. The 
cells of the future cell-state, which will be a healthier 
social body, is the woman with the maternal instinct. 

he great women reformers are not those who would 
Vhave women act just like men in all externals, but those 


ATLANTIS AS 


who are conscious that all men, even the greatest, were 
born of women. They are the conscious mothers of the 
race of men and gods. A woman’s natural right is her 
right to the child, and it is a most inglorious page in 
the history of woman that she has allowed herself to be 
deprived of that right. The birth of the child, in so 
far as it is not sanctioned by a man, is subject to the 
- fire and brimstone of public scorn. And this scorn is 
the most pitiful page in man’s history. The devil knows 
how it ever came to possess such awful, absolute do- 
minion. Form a league of mothers, I should counsel 
women. Each member shall give token of her mother- 
hood by having children without the sanction of a man, 
that is, without regard for so-called honour. In this 
lies woman’s strength, but only if she takes pride in her 
child, instead of bearing it with a troubled conscience, 
in cowardice, concealment, and fear. Reacquire your 
proud, instinctive consciousness, which you are fully 
justified in having, of being the mothers of humanity ; 
and having that consciousness, you will be invincible.” 
Doctor Wilhelm, who kept in touch with professional 
circles, was acquainted with Frederick’s name and the 
outcome of his scientific career. His unfortunate bac- 
teriological work was on his book shelf. Nevertheless, 
the name of Frederick von Kammacher had an author- 
itative ring, and association with the great man flattered 
him. He listened to Frederick’s exposition intently. 
The Red Cross sister entered again to summon Doctor 
Wilhelm to a first-class woman patient. The physi- 
cian’s small, close hermitage, in which Frederick was 
now left alone, gave him opportunity to reflect upon 
the meaning of his remarkable journey. The Roland 
was proceeding more smoothly, and while he sat there 
smoking cigarettes, a sense of comfort came over him, 


VA 


46 ATLANTIS 


partly attributable, however, to the general effect of a 
sea trip on one’s nerves. It seemed wonderful to him 
to be on this great transport of human cargo, to be 
driven onward to a new continent along with so many 
fellow-men, subject to the same weal and woe. And 
the cause of his presence on the ship was so curious! 
Never before had he had so strange a sense of being a 
will-less puppet in the hands of destiny. Again dark 
and light illusions mingled in his brain. He thought 
of Ingigerd, whom he had not yet seen; and when he 
touched the quivering wall of the low room, he was pen- 
etrated by happiness, that the same walls were protect- 
ing him as the little dancer and that the same bottom 
was holding them up. 

“It’s not true. It’s a lie,” he repeated half aloud, 
referring to the statement of the armless man, that 
Hahlstrém was exposing his daughter to dishonour and 
was exploiting her. 

Doctor Wilhelm’s return aroused Frederick from his 
dreams with a painful shock. Doctor Wilhelm laughed 
and continued to laugh, as he threw his cap on the bed 
and said: 

“T’ve just dragged our little Hahlstrém and her pet 
dog on deck. The little imp has been giving a regular 
performance, in which her faithful poodle, Achleitner, 
plays the part, one moment of the beaten cur, the next 
moment of the spoiled darling.” 

Doctor Wilhelm’s report made Frederick uneasy. 
The first time he had seen Mara, she seemed to him the 
incarnation of childish purity and innocence. But since 
then, rumours had reached his ears which shook his faith 
in her chastity and caused him many agonised hours and 
sleepless nights. He had even had an excellent opin- 
ion of her father, and that, too, was shaken, 


ATLANTIS — AT 


Doctor Wilhelm, who also seemed to be extremely 
interested in Ingigerd, began to speak of Achleitner. 

‘* He told me in confidence, he’s engaged to her.” 

Frederick remained silent. ‘That was his only way 
of concealing his profound dismay, now that the ship’s 
doctor confirmed the supposition he had expressed at 
the dinner-table. 
_  Achleitner is a faithful dog,” Doctor Wilhelm con- 
tinued. ‘‘ He is one of those men who have a canine 
sort of patience. He sits up on his hind legs and begs 
for a lump of sugar. He fetches and carries and lies 
down and plays dead. She could do whatever she 
wanted, and he would still, I think, be her patient, 
faithful poodle. If you’d like to, Doctor von Kam- 
macher, we might go on deck and visit her. She’s lots 
of fun. Besides we can watch the sun set.” 


XIT 


Lirtite Mara lay stretched out in a steamer chair. 
Achleitner was most uncomfortably perched on a small 
camp-stool directly in front of her, so that he could 
look straight into her face. He had wrapped her up 
to her shoulders in rugs. The setting sun, casting its 
rays across the mighty heavings of the sea, glorified a 
lovely face. ‘The ship was no longer tossing so vio- 
lently, and the deck was lively with people sitting in 
chairs or promenading up and down. Some of the pas- 
sengers had got over their seasickness, and there was a 
general air of revived animation and talkativeness. 

Mara’s appearance was somewhat conspicuous. She 
wore her very long, light hair flowing, and was playing 
with a small doll, a fact of which every passer-by turned 
about to assure himself. 


48 ATLANTIS 
When Frederick saw this girl, who for weeks had been 


hovering in his soul, in his dreams, in his waking hours, 
who, as it were, had covered the rest of the world from 
his sight, or, at least, had cast a veil over it, his ex- 
citement was so intense and his heart beat so violently 
against his ribs that he had to turn away to keep his 
countenance. Even after the lapse of several seconds, 
it was difficult for him to believe that the enthralled, 
enslaved condition of his being was not noticeable to 
the people about him. But his excitement was by no 
means due solely to the fear of self-betrayal. It sprang 
from his passion, which, he suddenly realised, dominated 
him with undiminished strength. 

** Papa told me you were here,” the little miss said 
to him, adjusting the blue silk cap on her doll’s head. 
** Won’t you sit down with us? Mr. Achleitner, please 
go and get a chair for Doctor von Kammacher.” She 
turned to Doctor Wilhelm. “ Your treatment was sum- 
mary, but I am grateful to you. I feel very well sitting 
here, watching the sun set. You’re fond of nature, 
aren’t you, Doctor von Kammacher? ” 

“ Nur fiir Natur hegte sie Sympathie,” trolled Doctor 
Wilhelm, swaying on tip-toe. 

*‘Oh, you are impudent,” Ingigerd reproved him. 
* Doctor Wilhelm its impudent, you know,” she added 
to Frederick. ‘* I saw he was the very instant he looked 
at me and the way he took hold of me.” 

“But, my dear young lady, so far as I know, I never 
took hold of you.” 

“Tf you please, you did — going up the stairs. I 
have blue marks as the result.” 

The chatter ran on for a while in a similar strain. 
Frederick, without betraying it, was on the alert for 
every word she uttered, noted every play of feature, 


ATLANTIS 49 


watched for her glances, for the rise and fall of her 
lashes. He jealously studied the others, too, and 
caught every expression, every movement, every glance 
that was meant for her. He even noticed how Max 
Pander, the handsome cabin-boy, still standing at his 
post, held his eyes fixed upon her, a broad smile on his 
lips. 

Ingigerd’s pleasure in receiving the homage of three 
men and being the centre of general interest was evi- 
dent. She plucked at her little doll and her odd, 
checked jacket, and gave herself up to coquettish whim- 
sies. Her affected voice filled Frederick with the de- 
light of a long, cool drink to a thirsty man. At the 
same time, his whole being was inflamed with jealousy. 
The first mate, Von Halm, a magnificent young man of 
twenty-eight, a perfect tower of a man, joined the group 
and was favoured by Ingigerd with looks and pointed 
remarks, which indicated to her admirers that this weath- 
er-tanned officer was not an object of indifference to 
her. 

“How many miles, Lieutenant, since we left the 
Needles? ” asked Achleitner, who was pale and evidently 
chilly. 

* We’re making better time now,” Von Halm replied ; 
‘but for the last twenty-two or twenty-three hours, we 
haven’t made more than two hundred miles.” 

* At that rate it will take two weeks to reach New 
York,” cried Hans Fiillenberg, somewhat too forwardly, 
from where he was sitting a little distance away. He 
was still flirting with the English lady from Southamp- 
ton; but now, irresistibly drawn to Mara’s sphere, he 
jumped up and left her, bringing the tone that was 
agreeable to Mara and all her admirers, except Fred- 
erick yon Kammacher. The jolliness of the little 


50 ATLANTIS 


group communicated itself to the rest of the promenade 
deck, 

Disgusted with the orgy of banality, Frederick moved 
off to be alone with his thoughts. The deck, which in 
the middle of the day had been dripping with water, 
was now quite dry. He walked to the stern and looked 
out over the broad, foaming wake. He heaved a deep 
breath of joy at the thought that he was no longer in 
the narrow spell of the little female demon. Suddenly 
the long tension of his soul relaxed. Though he might 
have suffered a profound disenchantment, yet he felt 
as if he had taken a sobering bath, which left him a 
free agent, alone with his own soul. He felt ashamed 
of his instability. His passion for that little person 
seemed ridiculous, and he covertly beat his breast and 
rapped his forehead with his knuckles as if to awaken 
himself from a dream. 

But, finally, the great cosmic moment of the slowly 
setting sun cast its spell over the young German ad- 
venturer. 

A fresh wind was still blowing from the southeast, 
slanting the vessel slightly to the side where the sun 
hung over the horizon, turning the heavens in the west 
into a great, dusky conflagration. ‘That sun, beneath 
which a slate-coloured sea was rolling in waves gently 
tossing foam — that sea, slate-coloured in the east and 
a cold, darkening blue in the west and south — that 
sky above, with great masses of clouds — these were to 
Frederick like the three mighty motives of a world sym- 
phony. 

** Any one who is susceptible to them,” he thought, 
“has no real cause to feel small, for all their awful 
majesty.” 

He was standing near the log, the long line of which 


ATLANTIS 51 


was trailing in the ocean. The great ship was quivering 
under his feet. From the two smoke-stacks the wind 
was pressing the smoke’ down over the waves, and a 
melancholy procession of figures, widows in long crépe 
veils, wringing their hands in mute grief, drifted away 
backward, as if into the twilight gloom of eternal dam- 
nation. He heard the talking of the passengers, and 
represented to himself all that was united within the 
walls of that immense house, hurrying forward rest-. 
lessly — how much hunting, fleeing, hoping, fearing. 
And in his soul, responding to the universal miracle, 
arose the great unanswered questions that seek to pene-_ / 
trate to the dark meaning of existence: ‘* Why? »\/ 
* What for? ” 


XII 


He began to pace the deck again without noticing that 
he drew near Ingigerd Hahlstrém. 

“You are wanted,” a voice behind him suddenly an- 
nounced. Seeing how he started, Doctor Wilhelm ex- 
cused himself. 

“You were dreaming; you are a dreamer,” Mara 
called. ‘Come over here. I don’t like these stupid 
men.” 

The six or eight gentlemen in attendance, with the 
exception of Achleitner, laughed and withdrew wilh a 
humorous show of great obedience. 

“Why do you stay here, Achleitner?” Thus the 
faithful canine received his dismissal. 

Frederick saw how the men withdrew together in 
groups at a little distance, whispering as they usually 
do when having sport with a pretty woman who is not 
exactly a prude; and it was with some shame, at any 


52 ATLANTIS 


rate, with expressed repugnance that he took the stool 
still warm from Achleitner’s body. Mara began to 
rhapsodise about nature. 

“‘ Isn’t everything prettiest when the sun goes down? 
I think it’s fun — at least I like it,” she quickly substi- 
tuted, when Frederick made a wry face at the remark. 
She spoke in sentences that all began with “I don’t 
like,” or * I despise,” or ‘‘ I do detest.”? In the face of 
that vast cosmic drama unfolding itself before her 
senses, she sat wholly unmoved and unsympathetic, dis- 
playing the overweening arrogance of a spoiled child. 
Frederick wanted to jump up, but remained where he 
was, pulling nervously at the end of his moustache, 
while his face assumed a stiff, mocking expression. 
Mara noticed it, and was visibly upset by this unusual 
form of homage. 

Frederick had one of those idealistic heads set on 
broad shoulders characteristic of certain circles in the 
“nation of poets and philosophers.” His ancestors had 
been scholars, statesmen, and soldiers. ‘The general, his 
father, was in externals wholly the soldier; but beneath 
his uniform, his heritage from his own father, a re- 
nowned botanist, director of the botanical gardens at 
Genoa, actively manifested itself in a strong interest in 
science. Frederick’s mother was a well-read woman, 
passionately fond of the theatre and an enthusiastic 
lover of Goethe and the poets of the romantic school. 
Her father, who had been prime minister of Wittenberg, 
as a student and even later in his career, composed 
poetry, which her adoring love for him had caused her 
to publish and several times revise and reprint. 

Though Frederick had never been ill, there were times 
when he showed symptoms of a peculiar passionateness. 
His friends knew that when all went well, he was a 


ATLANTIS 53 


‘dormant volcano; that when things did not go so well, 
he was a volcano spitting fire and smoke. To all ap- 
pearances equally removed from effeminateness and 
brutality, he was subject, nevertheless, to accesses of 
both. Now and then a dithyrambic rapture came over 
him, especially when there was wine in his blood. He, 
would pace about, and if it was daytime, might address 
a pathetic, sonorous invocation to the sun, or at night, 
to the constellations, particularly to the chaste Cassi- 
opela. 

Since she had known him, Mara felt that his proximity 
was by no means lacking in danger; but being what she 
was, it piqued her to play with fire. 

**T don’t like people that think themselves better than 
others,” she said. 

“ Being a Pharisee, I do,” Frederick drily rejoined, 
and went on cruelly: ‘I think for your years you are 
extremely forward and cock-sure. Your dance pleases 
me better than your conversation.” He felt much like 
a man berating his sister. 

Mara silently studied him for a moment, a suggestive 
smile on her lips. ‘ 

** According to your notions,” she finally said, “a 
girl mustn’t speak unless she’s spoken to, and she mustn’t 
have any opinions of her own. You look as if the only 
sort of girl you could love would be one that was always 
saying, ‘I am a poor, ignorant thing. I don’t under- 
stand what he sees in me.’ I hate such nincompoops!” 

Conversation came to a halt. Frederick half rose to 
leave, but she restrained him with a self-willed, pouting, 
“No.” There was something childlike and honest in 
that pouting “no” which touched his soul and drew 
him down on the, stool again. 

“In Berlin, while I danced, I always had to look at 


54 . ATLANTIS 


you,” she continued, holding her doll against her lips 
so that her little nose was a bit flattened. ‘“ The very 
first time I saw you, I felt something like a bond be- 
tween us; I knew we should meet again.” 

Frederick started, though not for an instant deceived, 
knowing this must be an oft-used formula for establish- 
ing a relationship, and in essence a lie. 

“Are you married? ” he heard before he had fully 
recovered his balance. He turned pale. His answer 
was hard and repellent. 

“It would be well, Miss Hahlstrém, if you were to 
examine me more closely before you treat me as one 
among many. So far, I don’t believe in the bond that 
unites us. During your dance you looked not only at 
me, but at everybody else.” He spoke with increasing 
coldness. ‘ At any rate, it doesn’t in the least concern 
you whether I am, or am not, married — just as little 
as it concerns me what repulsive personages, whom . 
nothing but a depraved instinct can enjoy, you keep 
company with.” He meant Achleitner. 

Ingigerd gave a short laugh. ‘‘ Do you take me for 
Joan of Arc? ” 

“‘ Not exactly that,” rejoined Frederick, “ but if you 
would allow me, I should like to regard you as still a 
girl, a distinguished little lady, whose reputation can- 
not be too carefully guarded against the faintest 
blemish.” 

** Reputation!” sneered the girl. “ You are very 
much mistaken if you think I ever cared for anything of 
the sort. I’d rather be disreputable ten times over and 
live as I please, than have a good reputation and die 
of boredom. I must enjoy my life, Doctor yon Kam- 
macher,” 


ATLANTIS 55 


Frederick’s teeth clenched. Outwardly composed, he 
was suffering the pangs of torture. 

Ingigerd proceeded to reveal her life in a series of 
confidences of such shocking content as to be worthy of 
a Lais or a Phryne. Doctor von Kammacher, she said, 
might be sorry for her if he wanted to, but nobody was 
to make a mistake about her. Everybody associating 
with her was to know exactly who she was. In this she 
betrayed a certain dread, as one who would absolutely 
guard others as well as herself against the catastrophe 
of disillusionment. 

When the sun had set, and Ingigerd, still with that 
suggestive, sensual, evil smile on her lips, had finished 
her hideous confession, Frederick found himself con- 
fronting the knowledge of a childhood so outrageous as 
to be worse than anything he had met with in all his 
experience as a physician. 

Several times in the course of her narrative, Achleit- 
ner and her father had come to take her inside, but she 
had angrily driven them away. It was Frederick who 
finally helped her back to her cabin. 

In his own cabin, without even removing his overcoat, 
he threw himself on his berth to think over the incon- 
ceivable story. He sighed, he gnashed his teeth, he 
wanted to doubt it. Several times he said aloud, 
“No!” or “ Impossible! ” and beat his fists against the 
mattress of the berth above. He could have sworn an 
oath that this time there had not been a single lie in 
Mara’s whole shameless narrative. ‘‘ Mara, or the 
Spider’s Victim.”? Now, of a sudden, he understood 
her dance! She had danced the thing she had lived in 
her own life! 


56 ATLANTIS 


XIV 


“IT wave set my all on nothing.” 

To the accompaniment of this refrain beating in his 
soul Frederick maintained an outer show of hilarity. 
He and the ship’s. doctor were drinking champagne. 
He had ordered the first bottle with the soup and had 
immediately drunk several glasses. 

The more he drank the less he felt the smart of a cer- 
tain burning wound, and the more wonderful the world 
appeared, full of miracles and riddles, surrounding and 
penetrating him with the intoxication of an adventurer’s 
life.. He was a brilliant entertainer, with an easy, 
happy way in conversation of popularising his rich 
store of knowledge, and with a light humour, which 
stood at his command even when, as now, grim humour 
crawled in the depths of his being, like evil reptiles, 
Thus it was that the captain’s corner that evening fell 
under his spell, both of his jocular self and serious 
self. 

Though he had lost his belief that science and modern 
progress alone possess the power to convey happiness, 
he extolled their virtues. As a matter of fact, in the 
festive gleam of the countless electric lights, excited by 
the wine, the music, and the rhythmic pulse beat of the 
moving vessel, it seemed to him at times as if humanity 
in a festal procession with music playing were sailing 
to the Isles of the Blessed. Perhaps, he said, science 
may some day teach man the secret of immortality. 
Ways and means would be found to keep the cells of 
the body young. Dead animals had been brought back 
to life by pumping a salt solution into them. He spoke 
of the wonders of surgery, always the theme of conversa- 
tion when a man of the present, over his champagne and 


ATLANTIS 57 


paté de foie gras, triumphs in the superiority of his age 
over all other ages. In a short while, he declared, 
chemistry would solve the social question, and man 
would forget what it is to worry about food. Why, 
chemistry was on the verge of discovering how to make 
bread of stones, a thing that hitherto only plants could 
do. Frederick continued in a similar strain, speaking 
by rote, and scarcely looking up, yet fascinating his 
listeners. 

But in the midst of the whirl of self-intoxication, he 
thought with a shudder of bedtime, knowing he should 
not close his eyes the whole night. And what recom- 
pense was the brightest height of the clearest day for 
the hell of a single sleepless night, such as he had often 
spent within the last years. 

After dinner, he went with Doctor Wilhelm to the 
ladies’ parlour, from there to the smoking-room. Soon 
after, he went on deck, where it was dark and gloomy 
and the wind was again whining dismally through the 
rigging of the four masts. It was bitter cold, and 
snowflakes, it seemed to him, swept his cheeks. . Finally, 
there was nothing for him to do but go to bed. 

For two hours, between eleven and one, he lay writh- 
ing in his berth, sometimes for a short while falling into 
a troubled state between waking and sleeping. In both 
states he saw visions, now a wild dance of faces, now a 
single stark face, which tormented him and would not 
budge. Yet an irresistible impulse gathered in him to 
keep his mental eye open for the devilish play of super- 
natural powers. 

He had turned out the electric lights, and in the dark, 
when the eye is unoccupied, one is doubly sensitive to 
the messages of hearing and feelmg. He caught every 
sound, felt every movement, of the mighty ship, steadily 


58 a ATLANTIS 


pursuing its’ course through the midnight. He heard 
the churning of the propeller, like the labouring of a 
great demon condemned to slave for mankind. He 
heard shouts and calls and the walking of men when 
the coal-passers threw, overboard the cinders from the 
huge boiler furnaces. On the trip to New York those 
furnaces consumed over a thousand tons of coal, and the 
casting away of the slag and ashes was left for the night- 
time. Thus, to the relief of the man wrestling with 
sleep, his attention was drawn to the present and the 
things taking place in the ship’s body. 

Yet, when there was no sound or movement to dis- 
tract him, his imagination succumbed to torturing 
thoughts of Mara and sometimes of his wife, with whose 
sufferings he occasionally used to reproach himself. 
Now that Ingigerd Hahlstrém had dishonoured his love 
for her, his conscience smote him all the more. His 
whole mentality seemed to have entered a state of re- 
action against the poison of his passion. <A high fever 
raged in his veins. The thing that in this condition 
represented his “I *? was engaged in a wild chase after 
the “ you” of Mara. He picked her up in the streets 
of Prague and dragged her back to her mother. He 
discovered her in houses of ill repute. He saw her 
standing before the home of a man who had taken her 
with him out of pity and then had turned her away in 
scorn, and she stood for hours weeping outside his win- 
dow. Frederick had by no means fully sloughed the 
skin of the conventional German youth. The old hack- 
neyed ideal of virginity was in his eyes still surrounded 
by a sacred aureole; but no matter how often he dis- 
covered Mara in evil things, no matter how often he 
rejected her in his imagination, or tried with all the 
moral strength of his being to destroy her image in his 

” 


ATLANTIS 59 


mind, her face in its golden setting, her frail, white 
girlish body pierced through each curtain, each wall, 
each thought with which he strove to conceal the evil 
spirit that would not be exorcised either by prayers or 
curses, 

Shortly after one o’clock, Frederick was tossed out 
of his berth. This time it was not one of those dream- 
like visions that had roused him with a start from a 
doze. The next instant he was thrown against the 
frame of the berth. It was evident that the weather 
had grown worse and the Roland was travelling in 
heavier waters of the Atlantic. 


XV 


A Frew minutes after five o’clock Frederick was already 
on deck. He seated himself on the same bench as yes- 
terday, opposite the companionway leading down to the 
dining-room. His steward, a sympathetic, indefatiga- 
ble young man from the province of Magdeburg, 
brought him tea and toast. It was a boon to Frederick. 

Every few minutes the water dashed over the railing 
and washed the deck. From the penthouse over the 
door of the companionway, streams would suddenly 
come raining down, completely drenching Max Pander’s 
little mate, who was now standing on guard. ‘The masts 
and rigging were decorated with icicles, and rain and 
snow were falling alternately. It seemed as if the 
dreary grey dawn, with its uproar, with the whining, 
whistling, and howling of the furious wind in the masts 
and rigging, with the swishing and seething of the 
waters, wanted to prolong its existence infinitely, while — 
the day refused to enter, 


60 ATLANTIS ner 


Warming his hands on his big tea-cup, he looked out 
over the ship’s side, which every now and then seemed 
to sink perpendicularly. His eyes glowed. He felt as 
if they had sunk deep into their sockets. After the 
hardships of the last few days, especially the past night, 
it was natural that he should feel bruised, bodily and 
spiritually. He had a sense of vacancy and dull- 
mindedness, a welcome feeling, to be sure, compared 
with his sensations of the night, when the procession of 
images passed through his brain. Nevertheless, the 
strong, moist, tonic wind, the taste of salt on his lips 
refreshed him. He shivered a little, and sat with his 
head sunk in the upturned collar of his overcoat. Pres- 
ently he began to feel pleasantly drowsy. 

But he did not fail to perceive the full majesty in the 
turmoil of the waves and the struggle of the floating 
palace. ‘There was beauty and strength in the steam- 
er’s fixed course, in the way it clove the rolling crests of 
the bottle-green waves, steady, tranquil, fearless. He 
admired the Roland, praised it, and was grateful to it 
as to a living being. 

Next after him to appear on deck were three children, 
two girls and a boy, of from five to eleven. One of the 
helpful stewards fastened their chairs and most solicit- 
ously guided them to their seats, one at a time. Chil- 
dren are spoiled on steamers. There they sat, rocked 
to and fro, fearlessly looking out upon the solemn, awful 
rolling of the long waves, upon the horror of the 
tempest. 

Shortly after seven o’clock, a slim man wearing the 
ship’s uniform slowly approached Frederick. Freder- 
ick had noticed him the day before and been interested 
by his air of cool impassibility. He was smoking a 
cigarette and inhaling, as when Frederick had first seen 


ATLANTIS 61 


him. Wearing an expression of profound apathy, he 
seemed to be completely absorbed in this occupation of 
smoking and inhaling. As if casually, he drew near 
Frederick’s bench, touched his cap, and said: 

** Doctor von Kammacher? ” 

ee Yes.” 

** Here is a letter for you,” he said, drawing it from 
his waistcoat pocket. ‘It came by the French pilot- 
boat yesterday. ‘The reason I did not deliver it is, that 
I could not find your name on the passenger list. My 
name is Rinck. I am in charge of the mail on board.” 

Frederick thanked him. He was moved to see his 
father’s handwriting. Rather for the sake of being 
friendly than from genuine interest at that moment, he 
asked Mr. Rinck what prospect there was of better 
weather. The sole answer was an unintelligible Eng- 
lish word, a shrug of the shoulders, and a puff of ciga- 
rette smoke blown with gusto. 

Frederick put the letter in his breast pocket, and he 
felt his heart beneath beat more warmly, less turbu- 
lently. He had to close his eyes to prevent a hot gush 
of tears. Doctor Wilhelm found him in this soft mood, 
and it occurred to him that perhaps after all Frederick 
had been tragically affected by the bitter close of his 
professional career. 

“TI slept like a bear,” he said. ‘And it was evident 
from the healthy colour of his face and his comfortable 
way of stretching and yawning that his night’s sleep 
had thoroughly refreshed him. ‘“ But the weather 
is fiendish,” he added, seating himself close beside 
Frederick. 

** Congratulate you,” said Frederick. “I didn’t 
sleep a wink.” 

‘Take some veronal. But whatever you do, come 


62 ATLANTIS 


down now to breakfast with me. The best thing for 
you is to keep moving. So I advise you, after break- 
fast to come with me on my visit to the steerage. It 
will take your mind off things and may interest you. 
There are interesting types there, women, too. But 
before we go, we must make ourselves insect-proof. 
We’ll puff powder on our clothes in my room.” 


XVI 


Tue gentlemen had breakfasted — baked potatoes and 
cutlets, ham and eggs, broiled flounder and other fish, 
beside tea and coffee — and were entering the steerage. 

Here, to keep from falling, they had to hold fast to 
the iron posts supporting the ceiling. After their eyes 
had grown accustomed to the twilight always reigning 
in the steerage, they saw a swarm of human beings roll- 
ing on the floor, groaning, whimpering, wailing, shriek- 
ing. ‘The weather did not permit of the opening of the 
port-holes, and the exhalations of about twenty Rus- 
sian-Jewish families, with bag and baggage and babies, 
polluted the air to such an extent, that Frederick could 
scarcely breathe. Mothers lying on their backs with 
open mouths and closed eyes, more dead than alive, had 
infants at their breasts; and it was fearful to see how 
the retching convulsed them. 

** Come,” said Doctor Wilhelm, observing something 
like a tendency to faint in Frederick’s face. ‘ Come, 
let us show how superfluous we are.” 

But Doctor Wilhelm and the Red Cross nurse, who 
accompanied him, had a chance, here and there, to do 
some good. He ordered grapes and a tonic for those 
who were suffering most. These things were obtained 
from the store-rooms of the first and second cabin. 


ATLANTIS 63 


With great difficulty they made their way from sec- 
tion to section. Everywhere the same misery, the same 
flight from want and infuriated persecution. Even the 
pale faces of those who were able to keep on their feet 
and had found a place to stand in that swaying shelf of 
misery, were marked by a hopeless, brooding expression 
of anguish and bitterness. 

Among the hundreds of immigrants, there were some 
pretty girlish faces. To a few the fever produced by 
the unusual circumstances had imparted a bold, pas- 
sionate charm. The glances of the physicians and 
these girls met. Such circumstances overstimulate the 
feelings and make them highly susceptible. Great 
stress, great danger cause the life of the moment to flare 
up more alluringly and also create a sense of profound 
equality among human beings. In the very midst of 
fear and tension, a boldness develops ready at any mo- 
ment to make a leap. | 

Doctor Wilhelm pointed out to Frederick a Russian- 
Jewish girl of about seventeen. The expression of her 
face was sombre. Her features were most delicately 
chiselled, and she was as transparent as an image of 
wax. Doctor Wilhelm, observing the defiant air with 
which she glowered at Frederick, remarked that he must 
have conquered at first sight. 

On passing farther, Frederick heard a voice baw] his 
name. It was Wilke, but a very different Wilke from 
the one he had met on deck the morning before. He 
was cursing and scolding at everybody and everything, 
while trying to raise himself from his mattress; a feat 
rather difficult for him to accomplish, because, in the 
first place, the rolling of the vessel in the steerage was 
fearful, and in the second place, he had evidently been 
trying to counteract the wretchedness of his condition 


64 ATLANTIS 


by the imbibing of whisky. Doctor Wilhelm gave him 
a sharp berating. Wilke, very clearly, was a nuisance, 
perhaps even a danger, to everybody about him. In 
his intoxication he fancied he was being pursued. The 
rags from his open bundle lay spread on his mattress 
mixed with cheese and bread-crumbs, and in his right 
hand he held open a large pocket-knife. 

Doctor Wilhelm had not been aware that he was deal- 
ing with a particular acquaintance of Frederick’s. 
His admonitions were of no effect. Wilke shouted that 
his neighbours had robbed him, and so had the stew- 
ards, and the sailors and the captain. Frederick took 
his knife away from him, spoke to him in a military tone, 
and unceremoniously touched a scar on the rough fel- 
low’s hairy neck to recall to him the fact that he had 
already sewed one knife wound, from which he had 
barely escaped with his life. ‘That worked, and Wilke 
seemed to be repentant. Frederick gave him some 
money, but not for whisky, as he told him, and added 
he would try his best for him, but only if he heard that 
he had been behaving like a decent human being. 


XVIT 


Tur physicians ascended on deck again. On breathing 
in the ocean’s pure breath after the foul odours of the 
steerage, Frederick felt as if he had escaped from a 
hideous, suffocating hell. 

With difficulty they made their way across the wet, 
empty deck, ever and again washed by waves sweeping 
overboard. To keep their footing they had to cling 
to the railing. Not a soul was on deck. The ship, 
restlessly rolling and pounding, seemed to have been 


ATLANTIS 65 


left to fight its fight alone. But this was an awful scene 
that relieved and refreshed Frederick. 

He went to the ladies’ parlour, there to read the letter 
from home, which he had nearly forgotten. A few 
women, who were not seasick, were scattered through 
the room, lolling in their chairs in a state of limp ex- 
haustion. The saloon smelled of plush and varnish. 
It was decorated with a number of mirrors in gold 
frames, there was a grand piano, and the sound of foot- 
steps was muffled by the soft carpet covering the floor. 
The prevailing colour was blue. ° 

Frederick made himself comfortable in one of the blue 
arm-chairs, and opened the envelope. He found a let- 
ter from his mother also. But he was more anxious to 
learn his father’s feelings and opinion of the step he had 
taken, and he read his letter first. 


Dear FREDERICK, 


I do not know whether this letter will find you, or where it will 
find you. Perhaps not until you reach New York, where it may 
arrive later than you. I should really like you to have your old 
father’s and mother’s greetings on your trip, which is something 
of a surprise to us. But we are used to surprises from you, 
since we have not had your unreserved confidence for a long time. 
I am a fatalist, and far from wishing to bore you with re- 
proaches; but it is a pity that ever since you have been of age, 
so many differences have arisen in our ways of thinking and 
acting. A great pity, God knows. If only you had sometimes 
listened to me—but, as I said, there’s no use to come limping 
after with “if only’s” and the like. 

My dear boy, now that fate has afflicted you so sorely —I told 
you from the very first that Angéle comes of a diseased family 
—at least hold your head up. If you do, then nothing’s lost. 
And I especially beseech you— don’t take that nonsense of your 
failure with bacilli too much to heart. You know, I’ve already 
told you I think all the noise they make about bacilli is a hoax. 
Why, Pettenkofer himself swallowed the whole culture of a typhus 
bacillus without its hurting him. 

For all I care, go to America. It may not be a bad idea and 
need not be a failure. I know persons whose lives were wrecked 


66 | ATLANTIS 


here and who went to America and returned millionaires, to be 
envied and fawned upon. I don’t doubt that after all you have 
gone through, you have carefully weighed and considered the step 
you are taking. Dear Frederick, I beg of you, concentrate. The 
man who wants too much wants nothing. Above all, get rid of 
your philanthropic notions. You would never believe me when I 
told you that you uselessly sacrificed your money, your time, and 
your career to your philanthropic notions. And don’t take up 
with Utopias, such as, for example, Socialism is, even at best. 
Bismarck is gone. The exceptional law against the Socialists 
has been repealed. Now we'll be seeing wonders from that pack 
of red internationals without a country. Did you read that some 
Anarchist dogs have again been throwing bombs — in Paris in a 
café not far from the Gare St. Lazare, right among a lot of 
innocent people, and seven or eight were killed. My dear boy, 
you were in Paris. For God’s sake, in the discontented mood 
you are in, don’t throw yourself in with such desperate elements. 

Forgive me. It was a slip of my pen. But here in Gorlitz, 
far from the firing line, even a rational man, when he is troubled, 
begins to imagine things. With your talents you might have been 
an officer on a general’s staff long ago. 

God be with you. Write to us. I am convinced that with your 
great talents, you will strike root over there and make your for- 
tune. Be on your guard against art and against side interests, 
from which a man cannot make a living. Do you know that the 
Grand Duke has made Botho his adjutant? It looks as if the 
boy might rise pretty high. 

nae a good trip and sometimes think of your devoted father. 


With a sigh and a short, almost inaudible laugh of 
great compassion and great bitterness, Frederick folded 
up the letter. 

*** JT don’t know whether this letter will find you, or 
where it will find you,’ ” he repeated, and added men- 
tally, ‘‘ or how it will find you.” 

Then he sat still for a while, staring into space. 

After a time he became observant of the American 
jackanapes, who had annoyed him in the smoking-room 
the day before. He was flirting with a young lady 
apathetically lounging in an easy-chair, a Canadian, 
Frederick had been told. He did not trust his eyes 


‘ATLANTIS 67 


when he saw the American, who had been toying with 
a small box of matches, pile them up carelessly, and set 
fire to them in that inflammable room. <A steward came 
up and modestly explained that it was his duty to ask 
him to refrain from what he was doing. At which the 
jackanapes dismissed him with “ Get out of here, you 
idiot.” 

Frederick drew out his mother’s letter, but before 
reading it, he had to meditate briefly upon the matter 
that took the place of brains in the young American’s 
skull. 


My Dear Son, 


Your mother’s prayers accompany you. You have gone through 
a great deal and suffered very much for one of your years. To 
let you hear something pleasant at the very start, I will tell you 
of the children. They are very well. This week I convinced my- 
self with my own eyes that they have a good home with Pastor 
Mohaupt. Albrecht is splendid. Bernhard, you know, is more 
like his mother and always has been a quiet child. But he 
seemed more alert and more talkative. The life in the pastor’s 
house and on the farm seems to please him. Pastor Mohaupt 
thinks both boys are by no means untalented. He has already 
begun to give them lessons in Latin. Little Annemarie asked 
me very timidly about her mother, but especially about you. 
She spoke of you often. I told the children there was a medical 
congress in New York or Washington, where they would at last 
make an end of that dreadful disease, consumption. My dear 
child, do come back soon to this dear old Europe. 

I had a long talk with Doctor Binswanger. He told me your 
wife’s trouble is hereditary. It was in her all the time and would 
certainly have cropped out, sooner or later. He spoke of your 
work, too, dear child, and thought you ought not allow yourself 
to be crushed. Four or five years of hard work, he said, would 
make up for your set-back. 

Dear Dietrich, listen to your old mother and put your trust 
in our loving Father in heaven, I think you are an atheist. Just 
laugh at your old mother. But believe me, we are nothing without 
God’s help and mercy. Pray sometimes. It won’t do any harm. 
I know how you reproach yourself on Angéle’s account. Bin- 
swanger says you may have a perfectly easy conscience. And 


68 ATLANTIS 


if you pray, believe me, God will remove every thought of guilt 
from your harassed soul. You are only thirty. I am seventy. 
From the experience of the forty years more that I have, I tell 
you, your life can still turn out so that some day you will 
scarcely have a recollection of all you are now suffering. You 
will remember the facts; but you will try in vain to recall the 
feelings of anguish with which they are now connected in your 
mind, I am a woman. I was fond of Angéle. And yet I could 
observe you two together perfectly objectively. Believe me, there 
were times when she would have driven any man desperate. 


The end of the letter was all motherly tenderness. 
Frederick saw himself at his mother’s sewing-table by 
the window, and in his thoughts kissed her hair, her 
forehead, her hands. 

When he looked up, he heard the steward remonstrat- 
ing with the American and heard the American say in 
- good German: 

“The captain’s a donkey.” 

The word had the effect of an electric shock. The 
next instant another pile of matches sent up a wavering 
flare in the gloomy, terrifying twilight. 

Frederick mentally cut out the young man’s cerebrum 
and cerebellum for an anatomical examination, proceed- 
ing strictly according to the rules of dissection, as he 
had so frequently done in actuality. He hunted for 
the centre of stupidity, which undoubtedly composed 
the American’s whole soul, though his impudence, which 
he possessed in a rare degree, may also have had its 
seat in the brain. Frederick had to laugh. In his 
amusement he realised that little Ingigerd Hahlstrém 
no longer had any power over him, less, perhaps than, 
for example, the dark Jewess from Odessa, whom he had 
seen for the first time only a quarter of an hour before. 

Captain von Kessel entered. He greeted Frederick 
with a slight nod of his head and seated himself at a 
table beside a lady, with whom he was acquainted, appar- 


ATLANTIS 69 


ently. The American coxcomb and the pretty Cana- 
dian exchanged glances. She was languishing in her 
easy-chair, pale but coquettish. Frederick set her 
down as a woman of unusual southern beauty — 
straight nose, quivering nostrils, heavy, nobly arched 
eyebrows, black as her hair and the shadowy down over 
her fine, expressive, twitching lips. Her gestures had 
the weary grace of a Spaniard. She was laughing, and 
her long, slim form stretched on the chair shook. Her 
admirer, with a comic expression of seriousness, was 
again building a little pile of matches. In her weak 
condition she was unable to resist the impulse to laugh, 
and every now and then hid her face behind a black lace 
shawl. 

It was an exciting moment when the American, in de- 
fiance of the Captain’s presence, again made ready for 
his dangerous play. 

Von Kessel, broad and ponderous and somewhat too 
short-legged, seemed out of proportion in the dainty 
parlour. He was speaking quietly with his lady. 
From the expression of his face it was evident that the 
weather was giving him cause to be serious. Suddenly 
the matches flared up. Now the captain’s calm St. 
Bernard head turned slightly, and a voice said in a tone 
not to be misunderstood : 

** Put that fire out!” 

Frederick had never heard an order from a man’s lips 
so incisive, so truly commanding, so fearful. The 
American turned pale and in the twinkling of an eye 
smothered the flame. The beautiful Canadian closed 
her eyes. But the captain, as if nothing had occurred, 
continued to converse with his lady. 


70 ATLANTIS 


XVIII 


Soon after, Frederick was in the barbershop getting a 
shave. 

“Wretched weather,” observed the barber, wielding 
the razor with a sure hand, despite the dreadful tossing 
of the vessel. He seemed to be an intelligent man. 
Frederick had to listen to a second account of the Nord- 
mania, of how the waterspout had plunged through the 
ladies’ parlour and carried the piano down into the hold. 

An ordinary German servant-girl of the peasant class 
entered. She looked healthy to the core and none too 
intelligent. The barber called her Rosa and gave her 
a bottle of eau de Cologne. 

* 'That’s the fifth bottle of eau de Cologne that I’ve 
given her for her mistress since we left Cuxhaven,” the 
barber explained after she had left. “Her mistress is 
a divorced woman with two children. Her name is Mrs. 
Liebling. She is very nervous. Rosa hasn’t a very 
easy time of it. For five dollars a month she has to be 
at Mrs. Liebling’s beck and call morning, noon and 
night. She takes entire charge of the children. Soon 
after we left Cuxhaven, Mrs. Liebling came to have her 
hair dressed. You should have heard how she went on 
about that girl. The things she said against her. Not 
a spark of gratitude. She said the stupid, lazy thing 
wasn’t worth the price of her second-class cabin.” 

Several times Frederick had heard the sound of quar- 
relling mingled with children’s crying in the cabin oppo- 
site his. Once he had even distinctly caught the 
slapping sound of what must have been a box over some- 
body’s ear. 

“Does she hit Rosa? ” he asked the barber. 

66 Yes.” 


ATLANTIS GE 


Clearly, then, it was his neighbour of the opposite 
cabin in whose service the girl was. 

Frederick enjoyed listening to the lively barber retail 
gossip, while he lay stretched out in his patented chair. 
It diverted his mind from troublesome thoughts. The 
barber, who had been sailing the seas for many years, 
was by no means of the ordinary type of his class. He 
delivered a short discourse on modern shipbuilding, the 
moral of which was, not to construct light steamers for 
speed. 

“ Altogether,” he observed, “it’s a pity to lay so 
much stress on record-making. How is a great big 
body with walls like a wafer to resist heavy seas for any 
length of time? And see what tremendous engines it 
has to carry and what an enormous amount of coal it 
consumes. But the Roland’s a good boat. It was built 
in Glasgow in the yards of John Elder and Company. 
It has been running since June, 1881. The engines are 
compound steam-engines with three cylinders and 5800 
horse power. They require one hundred and fifteen 
tons of coal every day. ‘The boat makes sixteen knots 
an hour, and has a tonnage of 4510. There are one 
hundred and sixty-eight men in the crew.” 

The barber had all these details at his fingers’ ends. 
In a tone of annoyance, as if the thing caused him per- 
sonally a lot of trouble, he told that the Roland on each 
trip to or from New York dragged one thousand and 
three hundred tons of anthracite coal in its coal-bunk- 
ers. A slow trip, he insisted, was safe and comfortable, 
while a quick trip was dangerous and expensive. 

The little saloon with its electric lighting would have 
been a very comfortable place to be in, had it only stood 
at rest. But unfortunately its walls were quivering to 
the pulse of the engines and the floor was rising and 


72 ATLANTIS 


sagging to the swell and fall of the waves, which every 
now and then leapt against the port-hole with tiger-like 
fury. The flasks in the closets rattled. 

** A heavier ship,” said the barber, “ built to go more 
slowly, wouldn’t be pitching like this.” 

Next he spoke of a little person, who dyed her hair, 
a dancer. She had spent more than an hour in his 
chair, having him show her rouge and face powders, 
until finally he had displayed his entire stock of Pinaud 
and Roger et Gallet. The barber chuckled. 

** On sea trips,” he said, “ a man has a chance of get- 
ting to know the queerest women.” And he proceeded 
to recount a number of incidents, which, on his own 
word, he himself had witnessed. The heroine in each 
case was an erotomanic woman. 

“ Just ask our doctor,” he said. He was of the old- 
fashioned sort of barber-surgeon, and in the capacity of 
surgeon had gathered the most scandalous portion of 
his experiences. ‘‘ One of the worst cases,” he went on, 
“was that of an American girl, who was found lying 
unconscious in one of the life-boats swinging from the 
davits. She was hideously abused by all the crew, one 
at a time, but they fixed it so that the whole blame could 
be laid on her.’? 

Frederick knew that none other than Ingigerd Hahl- 
strém was responsible for the direction the barber’s 
thoughts had taken. She had been sitting in the very 
chair in which he was now reclining. A _ current 
streamed from its upholstery into his body. His heart 
began to beat irregularly, ceasing for an instant, then 
leaping wildly. To his horror, he observed that Mara’s 
power over him was not yet broken. 

He jumped up and shook himself. He felt as if he 
must plunge into a hot and cold bath and let stinging 


ATLANTIS "3 


douches run down his spine to wash him outwardly and 
inwardly clean and expel that foul poison from his 


blood. 


XIX 


Tue barbershop lay aft, and nearby one could look 
through glass panes upon the working of the cylinders 
and pistons. Frederick toilsomely clambered up to the 
promenade deck and crept into the overcrowded smok- 
ing-room. ‘Though it disgusted him to be wedged into 
a small space with a lot of noisy men, he had come here 
in the desire to escape the wild orgy of his thoughts. 
Doctor Wilhelm had kept a place for him. 

‘The doctor tells me you were in the steerage, and 
a beautiful Deborah made a dangerous impression upon 
you,” the captain said, smiling roguishly. 

Frederick laughed. He ordered beer, and the con- 
versation was jolly from the start. 

In their corner the skat players were sitting over 
their cards. They were business men, all of apoplectic 
constitution. ‘They had been drinking beer and play- 
ing skat ever since breakfast, in fact, except when they 
slept, ever since boarding the steamer. ‘The conversa- 
tion in the room was of no interest to them. Even the 
weather failed to elicit any questions from them. They 
seemed to be insensible to the tossing of the great vessel, — 
or the dismal howling of the wind. The force of the 
roll was so tremendous that Frederick involuntarily 
clutched at the thing nearest to him. Up went the port 
side, down went the starboard. Up went the starboard, 
down went the port side. Sometimes Frederick felt as 
if port and starboard might plunge one over the other; 


74 ATLANTIS 


in which case the Roland’s keel would float above water, 
while the bridge, masts, and smoke-stacks would be sub- 
merged at a distance below the surface. And in that 
case all would be lost; but those skat players, it seemed 
to him, would go on playing undisturbed. — 

Hahlstrém’s tall figure came creeping with bent head 
into the tobacco smoke. His clear, cold, critical eyes 
roved about looking for a seat. He paid no attention 
to the armless man, who jestingly shouted an ironic re- 
mark to him. With cool politeness he seated himself 
at the greatest possible distance from Stoss, drew a 
pouch of tobacco from his pocket, and filled a short 
Dutch pipe. Frederick’s immediate thought was, 
“Where is Achleitner? ” 

“How is your daughter feeling?” Doctor Wilhelm 
asked. 

“* Oh, she’s just a little upset now. The weather will 
be getting better, I suppose.” 

The whole comp: ny, which, of course consisted of the 
men either by nature or from frequent exposure proof 
against seasickness, now entered into the usual discus- 


- sion of the weather. 


“Ts it true, Captain,” somebody asked, “ that last 
night we nearly collided with a derelict? ” 

The captain smiled, raised his brows, and made no 
reply. 

‘Where are we now, Captain? Was there fog last 
night? I saw some snow fall. And for at least an 
hour I heard the siren blow every two minutes.” 

But Captain von Kessel remained highly monosylla- 
bic in everything pertaining to the management of the 
vessel and the prospects for a good or bad crossing. 

“Ts it true that there is gold bullion on board for 
the treasury in Washington? ” 


ATLANTIS 75 


Von Kessel smiled and sent a thin wreath of cigarette 
smoke curling through his moustache. 

“That would be carrying coals to Newcastle,” re- 
marked Wilhelm. 

And now the great theme, the theme of themes, be- 
came the general topic of conversation. Each of the 
travellers, of course, straightway had a picture of his 
own fortune in mind, every cent of it, or else tried to 
make an accurate mental calculation. They all turned 
into calculating machines, while aloud comparing the 
capitals of the great American banking firms, the Bank 
of England, the Crédit Lyonnais and the wealth of all 
the American millionaires. Even the skat players igi 
their attention for a few moments at a time. 

America was then suffering from a business depres- 
sion, a crisis, as the political economists dub it. The 
causes of the depression came up for discussion. Most 
of the Americans present happened to be Democrats, 
and they threw the blame on the Republicans. The 
Tammany Tiger was the subject of especial execration. 
It not only controlled New York City, the mayor of 
which was a creature of Tammany, but had also put its 
men into the most influential positions throughout the 
land. And every Tammany man knew how to shear 
his sheep. As a result, the American people were 
thoroughly bled. The corruption in the highest offices 
was said to be on a tremendous scale. Millions of dol- 
lars were appropriated to the navy, but if a man-of-war 
actually happened to be built, the thing was a great 
achievement, since the money, long before it was applied 
to its proper purpose, sifted down into the pockets of 
peaceful Americans, whose interest in the navy was of 
the slightest. 

“I shouldn’t care to be buried in America,” cried 


76 ATLANTIS 


Stoss, in his sharp voice. “ It would be too dreary and 
boresome for me in my grave. I hate their spitting and 
their ice-water.”” The burst of laughter that greeted 
his remark encouraged him to further sallies. ‘ Amer- 
icans are parrots, incessantly chattering two words, 
dollar and business, dollar and business, dollar and busi- 
ness. ‘Those two words have been death to culture in 
America. An American doesn’t even know what it is to 
have the Englishman’s spleen. Think of the fearful- 
ness of living in a country called the land of dollars. 
We have human beings living in Europe. The Ameri- 
cans regard everything, even their fellow-men, from the 
point of view of the number of dollars they represent. 

If a thing can’t be reckoned in dollars, they have no 
eyes for it. And then Carnegie and Company come and 
want to astonish us with their disgusting shopkeeper’s 
philosophy. Do you think they’re helping the world 
on by slicing off some of the world’s dollars and then 
returning some of the sliced off dollars with a great 
flourish of trumpets? Do you think that if they do us 
the favour to give us some of their money, we’ll throw 
overboard our Mozart and Beethoven, our Kant and 
Schopenhauer, our Schiller and Goethe, our Rem- 
brandts, Leonardos, Michael Angelos, in short, all our 
wealth of art and intellect? What is a miserable cur 
of an American millionaire, a dollar maniac, as com- 
pared with all those great men? Let him come and ask 
us for alms.” 


XX 


Tuer captain invited Frederick to his cabin and asked 
him to write a few words in his album. On the way, he 
showed him the chart-room and the wheel-house, where 


ATLANTIS 17 


a sailor was turning the great wheel at the directions 
of the first mate, whose voice came from the bridge 
through a speaking-tube. Frederick read the compass 
in front of the wheel and saw that the Roland lay west- 
southwest. The captain was in hopes of striking bet- 
_ter weather by taking a more southerly route. The 
helmsman did not allow his attention to be diverted for 
the fraction of a second, He kept his bronzed, weather- 
beaten face with its corn-coloured beard turned un- 
waveringly toward the compass, and his sea-blue eyes 
fastened upon the west-southwest line. And the face 
of the compass, in its round copper case, notwithstand- 
ing the vessel’s elephantine leaps and bounds, never 
deviated from the horizontal. 

When they reached his cabin, the handsome blond 
German, whose eyes came of the same stock as the 
mariner’s at the wheel, became more expansive. He 
insisted on Frederick’s taking a comfortable seat and 
offered him a cigar. He spoke of his own life. Fred- 
erick learned that he was unmarried, had two unmar- 
ried sisters and a brother with a wife and children. The 
pictures of his sisters, his brother, his brother’s wife, his 
brother’s children, and his parents were hung sym- 
metrically on the wall over a red plush sofa. They were 
sacred objects. 

Frederick did not fail to ask his stereotyped question: 

“Do you follow your calling because you have a de-\ 
cided preference for it? ” 

“Tell me of a position on land where I could com- 
mand the same salary, and I’d exchange without an in- 
stant’s hesitation. Seafaring begins to lose its charms 
when a man gets on in years.” 

The captain’s guttural voice was extremely agreeable. 


It suggested to Frederick the sound of colliding billiard 


78 ATLANTIS 


balls. His enunciation was perfect, absolutely free of 
a dialectic tinge. 

-* My brother has a wife and children,” he said. 
Though there was, of course, not the slightest trace of 
sentimentality in his tone, it was evident from the gleam 
in his eyes how he idolised his nieces and nephews. He 
pointed out each one’s picture and at the end said 
frankly, “ My brother is an enviable man.” ‘Then he 
asked Frederick whether he was the son of General von 
Kammacher. He had taken part in the campaign of 
1870 and 1871 as lieutenant of the regiment of artillery 
of which Frederick’s father had been chief. He spoke 
of him with great admiration and reverence. 

Frederick remained in the captain’s cabin over half 
an hour. His presence seemed to give the skipper 
special pleasure. It was astonishing what a gentle, 
tender soul was hidden beneath the commanding ex- 
terior. Before disclosing a bit of that soul, he always 
puffed harder at his cigar and gave Frederick a long, 
searching look. By degrees Frederick discovered what 
magnet was tugging strongly at the blond giant’s heart. . 
He kept recurring alternately to the Black Forest and 
the Thiiringian Forest, and Frederick had a mental pic- 
ture of the magnificent man clipping his privet hedge 
in front of his cosey cottage, or walking among his rose 
bushes with a pruning knife in his hand. He could de- 
tect that the captain would far rather be living secluded 
in a sea of green leaves and green pine needles; and he 
felt convinced that it would have been delicious to him 
to submerge himself forever in the soft rushing of end- 
less forests and dispense forever with the rushing and 
roaring of all the oceans in the world. 

“Perhaps the night of all days has not yet come,” 
said the captain, with a humorous expression. He rose 


ATLANTIS ee 


and placed the large album in front of Frederick. 
“Now I am going to lock you in here with this pen 
and this ink, and when I return, I want to find some- 
thing clever on this page.” 

Frederick von Kammacher turned the leaves of the 
mariner’s album. It was unmistakable that the hope 
for a vegetable garden, gooseberry bushes, the chirping 
of birds, and the buzzing of bees was most intimately 
connected with this book. Under the pressure of dreari- | 
ness and the grave responsibility for many a sea trip,’ 
it must expand the captain’s soul to look over it, 
Frederick thought. It seemed to point to a time when, 
in the peace and security of his simple home, it would 
serve its turn by testifying to all the dangers its pos- 
sessor had gone through, all his past struggles and 
hardships. In a sheltered haven it would afford pleas- 
ant retrospect, full of content. 

Frederick’s own quietistic ideal in the form of a farm 
and a solitary log hut occurred to him. But he was 
not living in it alone. The little devil Mara was 
sharing it with him. In embitterment he mentally 
climbed to still lonelier regions, and saw himself a her- 
mit, who prayed, drank nothing but water, and lived on 
roots, nuts, and sometimes a fish of his own catching. 

When the captain returned and he and Frederick had 
taken leave of each other, this is what he found in his 
book : 


Borne aloft on wave and ocean, 

Of thy master’s course partaking, 
Some day thou wilt cease thy motion, 
Of thy master’s rest partaking. 

In the garden of his stillness, 

To his manly deeds inspiring, 

Thou wilt faithfully bear witness. 
Thou art language well becoming 
Him who daily danger faces, 


80 ATLANTIS 


Gratitude of souls proclaiming, 
Whom he bore through cosmic spaces. 


The signature was 
“ FREDERICK vON Kammacuer, Globetrotter.” 


XXI 


Frepericx, holding on to his hat with one hand and 
clinging to the railing with the other, descended from the « 
windy heights of the captain’s cabin to the promenade 
deck. When he passed the cabin of the first mate, the 
door opened, and Von Halm appeared in conversation 
with Achleitner. Achleitner was pale, and there was 
an anxious look in his face. 

**T have rented the lieutenant’s cabin for Miss Hahl- 
strém. I could not bear to see her suffering so in her 
own cabin,” he called to Frederick. 

The gale had increased. Not a passenger was to be 
seen on deck. Sailors were inspecting the life-boats. 
Huge masses of water seethed against the ship’s side, — 
cutting into its course obliquely. The waves made a 
mad leap into the air, hung there for an instant in the 
form of white corals, and fell like a thousand lashes on 
the deck, which was all awash. The breath of the gale 
tore the smoke backward from the mouths of the smoke- 
stacks and scattered it in the wild chaos in which heaven 
and sea were mingled. Frederick glanced down at the 
fore-deck. In his burning brain arose a thought of the 
Jewess and then of the scoundrel, Wilke. But the fore- 
deck was so swept by the seas that nobody could keep 
his footing there, except the lookout men, who were 
holding watch at the beak of the vessel, not far from the 
cat-head. 

Between the door leading to the main companionway 
and the companionway itself was a square level space, 


ATLANTIS 81 


about which a railing ran and in which a few people 
could stay and enjoy the fresh air without being 
drenched. When Frederick, on his way below deck, 
passed through the open door, he found a quiet as- 
semblage of pale-faced passengers. One chair was still 
unoccupied. He seated himself in it, with the fanciful 
notion that he was joining a gathering of condemned 
~ men. . 
“That poor sinner there must be Professor Tous- 
saint, the famous sculptor in need,” Frederick thought, 
judging so from the man’s slouched hat and great cape. 
Now and then the man exchanged a few words with a 
person sitting next to him, who might be Geheimrat 
Lars. Frederick had once met the Geheimrat at a 
dinner at the mayor’s house, but he had only a faded 
recollection of his appearance. The clothing manufac- 
turer had dragged himself from his cabin, heaven knows 
how, and was lying in his chair like a corpse. Besides 
these, there were two men conversing with each other, 
one small, rotund and scary-faced, the other tall and 
thin. 

The tall one was showing the other a section of a sub- 
marine cable and letting the hard piece, intricately 
braided of hemp, metal and gutta-percha, pass from 
hand to hand. From his choppy, whispered sentences, 
the company learned that in 1877 he had worked as 
electrical engineer on a steamer laying a cable between 
Europe and the United States. The work on the high 
seas had lasted without interruption for many months. 
He had spent several months supervising the construc- 
tion of the steamer itself in the yards, especially the 
riveting of its metal plates. He spoke of what is called 
the cable plateau at the bottom of the ocean, stretching 
from Ireland to Newfoundland, a strip of grey sand 


82 ATLANTIS 


so named because it supports the main transatlantic 
cable. 

The copper wires in the centre of the cable, he said, 
were called its soul, the rest of the mass, almost as thick 
as a man’s fist and resembling a great hawser, served 
merely as a sheath to protect the soul. Frederick had 
a mental vision of the fearful solitudes of the ocean 
depths, with the monstrous metal serpent, apparently 
without beginning and without end, creeping over the 
sandy bottom peopled by the enigmatic creatures of the 
deep. It seemed to him as if such profound isolation 
must be gruesome even for the dead mass of cable. 

Then he wondered why it was that mankind at each 
end of the cable had burst into jubilation upon the trans- 
mission of the first messages. Perhaps there was some 
mystic cause for rejoicing. 'The real cause could not 
possibly be that one was now able to telegraph ‘* Good 
morning, Mr. Smith,” or “ Good morning, Mr. Brown,” 
twenty times a minute around the earth’s circumference, 
or that one could adulterate humanity’s mind with 
newspaper gossip from the four quarters of the globe. 

In the midst of these meditations, his chair slipped, 
and Frederick, in company with the electrical engineer, 
the dozing manufacturer, a lady physician, and a lady 
artist, was hurled against the banister, while the oppo- 
site row of passengers, including the Geheimrat and the 
professor, was hurled on top of them. It was a ridic- 
ulous incident, but Frederick observed that no one 
seemed to find it so. 

They tried to arrange themselves in order again. 
One of the ever-industrious stewards appeared, and, as 
if to comfort them for their overthrow, passed about 
Malaga grapes from the ship’s inexhaustible store. 

“When shall we reach New York? ” somebody asked. 


ATLANTIS 83 


The eyes of all the others instantly turned upon the 
questioner in amazement and alarm. The steward, 
usually so polite merely smiled. an embarrassed smile 
and gave no reply. In his opinion an answer, one way 
or the other, would have been to challenge fate. The 
passengers felt much the same. Indeed, the idea that 
their feet would actually ever tread solid land again 
seemed in their present condition almost like an ex- 
travagant fairy tale. 

The short, stout man, to whom the electrical engineer 
was chiefly directing his discourse, was conducting him- 
self peculiarly. At short intervals he would look out 
anxiously into the uproar, turning his small, watchful 
eyes searchingly up to the tops of the masts, which 
never ceased to describe great arcs in the air (starboard 
to port, port to starboard!), and out into the monoto- 
nous rolling of the waves, swelling into ever higher and 
larger masses. His face was full of concern. Freder- 
ick was on the point of inwardly ridiculing the pitiful 
landlubber’s cowardice, when he heard him say that 
scarcely three weeks before he had brought his schooner 
safely to New York from a three years’ trip around the 
world, and intended to start out from New York on the 
same trip to last the same length of time. . The little 
gentleman was the experienced captain of a sailing ves- 
sel. In the course of his fifty years, he had spent more 
than thirty on all the waters of the globe. 


Frepericx reflected upon the timid skipper, whose 
characteristics seemed to harmonise so poorly with the 
demands, active and passive, of his rigorous calling. 


84 ATLANTIS 


He wondered what it is that permanently holds a man 
like that to his marriage ties and all the duties of his 
life. Then he arose to wander about the Roland 
vaguely. 

The enforced idleness of a sea trip, especially in bad 
weather, induces passengers, when they have made the 
complete round of the vessel, to begin over again and 
go through the same circle. Thus, Frederick, after 
descending the companionway, ascending it, and de- 
scending again, found himself on the leather-seated 
bench in the smoking-room avoided by most of the 
_ smokers, in which the armless man had taken his meal 
the day before. 

Hans Fiillenberg entered, asked whether he was not 
permitted to smoke a cigarette in the room, and began 
to grumble about the weather. 

** Who knows how this thing is going to end?” he 
complained dismally. ‘“ Perhaps, instead of reaching 
New York, we'll have to be towed into port somewhere 
in Newfoundland.” 

Frederick was indifferent to the prospect. He no- 
ticed that young Fiillenberg cared for nothing except 
to produce an impression; and young Fiillenberg no- 
ticed that Frederick von Kammacher was not suscep- 
tible to the impression he tried to produce. He cast 
about for another theme of conversation. 

** Do you know there are two priests on board? You 
should have been at Cuxhaven when they got on. The 
sailors were beside themselves. I hunted up the fel- 
lows, the sailors I mean, in the forecastle. How they 
did curse! It was fearful. The stoker told all the 
men of the engine-room. ‘They said you could not get 
genuine seamen to think any differently — with priests 
on board something is bound to go wrong.” 


ATLANTIS 85 


** How is your lady?.” asked Frederick. 

“My lady is retching her soul away, if she has 
such a thing as a soul. Two hours ago I helped her to 
bed. That Englishwoman is already a full-blooded 
American. Shameless, I tell you! Something tremen- 
dous. I rubbed her forehead with brandy. She par- 
took of a goodly quantity, and then I unbuttoned her 
waist. She seems to take me for a masseur chartered 
extra by her munificent husband. The thing became 
boresome. And besides, in that pitching boudoir, my 
own soul began to rise up through my stomach, and 
the poetry went to the devil. She showed me the pho- 
tograph of her devoted husband in New York. I think 
she has another in London.” He was interrupted by 
the first call for dinner, which the trumpeter announced 
at the bottom of the companionway. The trumpet 
blast was lost without resonance in the heavy air and 
the bluster of the waves. ‘ What’s more,” he con- 
cluded, ** she sent for Doctor Wilhelm.” 

The dining-room presented a very dreary appearance. 
Neither the captain nor any of the officers of the Ro- 
land were present, the demands upon them in such bad 
weather being too severe to permit them to leave their 
posts. The tables had been provided with a wooden 
apparatus dividing them into small compartments, 
which prevented the plates, glasses and bottles from 
slipping any distance. Nevertheless, there was much 
breaking of crockery, and it required all the skill of 
the stewards to serve the dishes, especially the soup. 
From the kitchen and the china room every now and 
then came the sound of a tremendous crash. ‘There were 
scarcely twelve people at table, among them Hahlstrém 
and Doctor Wilhelm. After a time the skat players, 
as usual, came bursting in, talking noisily and red of 


86 ATLANTIS | 


face. Their winnings were immediately transmuted 
into Pommery. Notwithstanding the fearful weather, 
the band was playing. ‘There seemed to be something 
frivolous, almost challenging, in the playing of music 
when, at short intervals, the Roland would come to a 
quivering standstill, as if it had run upon a reef. Once 
the illusion was so strong that a panic arose in the steer- 
age. Mr. Pfundner, the head-steward, brought this 
explanation of the horrified shrieks that had penetrated 
the dining-room above the noise of the raging waters, the 
rattling of the plates and the blare of the band. 

At dessert Hahlstrém left his place at the other end 
of the room and, balancing himself with difficulty, came 
over to Frederick and Doctor Wilhelm, and asked per- 
mission to seat himself beside them. He seemed to have 
been drinking whisky, as he had dropped his natural 
shell of reticence. He spoke of hydrotherapy and gym- 
nastic exercises, and called himself a quack. It was 
the gymnastics, he said, that had given his daughter 
the idea of taking up dancing. As if to challenge the 
others, he elaborated bold philosophic theories, dealing 
out one wild statement after the other, each of which 
would have been a trump sufficient to end the game for 
ten German Philistines. 'To believe his own word, he 
was a terroristic Anarchist, a white-slave trafficker, an 
adventurer always. At any rate, he espoused the cause 
of all who were Anarchists, procurers, or adventurers. 
He argued in all superiority, upon egotistic grounds, 
calling these the intellectuals, and all others, creatures 
without brains; in which his philosophy showed some 
similarity to Frederick von Kammacher’s new philos- 
ophy, now that Frederick had entered upon a new phase 
of his life. 

“ America,” said Hahlstrém, “ is known to have been 


ATLANTIS ST 


settled by rogues. Were you to spread a tent over 
America, you would have the most beautiful, the most 
comfortable penitentiary in the world. The natural 
form that survives and triumphs in America is the great 
rascal, the great Renaissance idiot. In fact, it is the 
one form that will triumph throughout the world. , 
You’ll see some day how the great American rascal will / 
get the whole of Europe, including England, into hig’ 
clutches. Europe is also dabbling a little in Renais- 
sance ideals and Renaissance beasts. It is busily work- 
ing away, so to speak, on its own rascalization. But 
America is in advance by ten horse lengths. Europe’s 
Cesare Borgias sit in the cafés with Glockenrécken a la 
Biedermaier and give voice to their criminal genius in 
fairly innocent verses.’ They all look sickly, as if a 
barber had cupped all the blood out of their veins. If 
Europe wants to save herself, she has only one hope 
— to make a law by which it will be a crime to sur- 
render an adventurer, an embezzler, a fraudulent bank- 
rupt, the keeper of a disorderly house, a thief, or a mur- 
derer to America. On German, English and French 
vessels in American ports, such people have already been 
placed under the special protection of Europe. Then 
you will see how soon Europe will outdistance Uncle 
Sam.” 

The physicians burst out laughing. 

“When did geniuses ever do anything morally? 
Even the creator of heaven and earth did not know how 
to. He produced an immoral world. Every high form 
of human intellectual activity has thrown ethics over- 
board. What would a historian be who, instead of mak- 
ing researches, would moralise? What would a phy- 
sician be who would stop to moralise? Or a great 
statesman, who would toe the chalk-line of your middle- 


« 


88 ATLANTIS 


class ten commandments? As for an artist, when he 
moralises, he is a fool and a knave. And please tell 
me, what sort of a business would the church do if all 
of us were moral? ‘There would be no church.” 

There was a cold gleam of audaciousness in the 
Swede’s eyes. His utterances produced a strange im- 
pression. Even if he had pronounced fewer wild par- 
adoxes, Frederick von Kammacher would have succumbed 
to his spell. He eagerly sought for resemblances be- 
tween father and daughter, or, more accurately, he 
observed them without seeking. 'They were very evident 
to one who, alas, to his own torture, was carrying the 
daughter’s picture alive in his soul. As long as the 
Swede spoke, he could not help wavering between re- 
pugnance and admiration, and he kept asking himself 
whether this man was really the sort of person that 
Arthur Stoss had described him to be, no gentleman, a 
weakling, an idle ragamuffin. 


XXIII 


As they arose from table and were ascending the com- 
panionway to the deck, Hahlstrém suddenly said to 
Frederick: 

** My daughter is expecting you. We have a friend 
on board, Mr. Achleitner, a soft creature, but the pos- 
sessor of much money, which he doesn’t know the best 
way to get rid of. So he made it worth while for one 
of the officers to give up his luxurious cabin opening 
on deck to my daughter. Unfortunately, that gives 
him the right to make an unmitigated nuisance of him- 
self sometimes.” 

When the men entered the comparafively roomy 


ATLANTIS ee 


cabin on deck, they found Achleitner sitting on a rather 
unsteady chair, while Mara, carefully wrapped up, was 
lying stretched out on a couch. She instantly called 
to her father, please to remove Mr. Achleitner, who was 
boring her, and signified to Frederick that she had a 
special favour to ask of him. Hahlstrém and Achleit- 
ner obediently withdrew, and Frederick nolens volens 
had to seat himself on the camp-chair. 

“How can I be of service? ” he asked. 

She put one of those inconsequential requests with 
which she liked to busy everybody about her. She did 
this, she explained, because if many people were not 
‘doing something for her, she felt neglected. 

* But if you don’t want to do it,” she added — it 
was to get her a bottle of perfume, or something of the 
sort, for which a stewardess would have been the right 
person to ask —“ but if you don’t want to do it, then 
please don’t. I should prefer it if you didn’t. In fact, 
if I bore you, I would just as soon sit alone.” 

Frederick realised that this beginning was a foolish 
expression of embarrassment. 

“TI should like to be of service to you in anything I 
can, and you don’t in the least bore me.” 

That was the truth. Alone with Ingigerd in her 
cabin, where the vessel’s motion was less perceptible, 
he was sensitive to the full fascination of her presence. 
The pangs of the ocean crossing had given her sweet 
girlish face a waxen transparency. At her request the 
stewardess had loosened her hair, and it lay spread in 
a golden flood over her white pillow, a golden flood, 
the sight of which was highly disturbing to Frederick. 
Where was there an adornment for the head, a queen’s 
diadem, which could exercise so powerful, so divine a 
charm? It seemed to Frederick as if that tremendous 


90 ATLANTIS 


vessel, with its hundreds of human ants, were nothing 
more than the cocoon of this tiny silkworm, this deli- 
cately coloured, delicious little butterfly; as if the sixty 
naked helots down at the ship’s bottom shovelling coal 
into the white heat under the boilers, were toiling and 
sweating merely to be of service to this childish Venus; 
as if the captain and officers were the paladins of the 
queen, and the rest of the crew her following; as if the 
steerage were filled with blindly devoted slaves, and as 
if the Roland were proudly carrying a fairy tale from 
“A Thousand and One Nights ” across the salt desert. 

** Did I hurt your feelings yesterday by telling you 
my story? ” she asked suddenly. 

“Mine? No! You are the injured one in the life 
you have unfortunately led.” 

She looked at him with a sardonic smile, plucking 
a pink wad from the lid of a box of sweetmeats beside 
her. In her looks and smiles, Frederick felt her cold, 
wicked enjoyment. And since he was a man and knew 
he was impotent in the face of such fiendish mockery, 
a wave of physical fury mounted in him, driving the 
blood into his eyes and causing him involuntarily to 
clench his fists. His full-blooded nature occasionally had 
need of such frenzy. It was a phenomenon with which 
his friends were familiar. 

** What is the matter with you? ” whispered Ingigerd, 
plucking at the pink wad. “TI am not afraid of a monk 
like you.” 

Her remark was not calculated to calm Frederick’s 
passionate surge. However, he mastered his feelings 
with evident, redoubled exertion of his will power. Had 
he not succeeded in controlling himself, he might have 
more resembled a Papuan negro than a European. He 
might have turned into a beast in human form and 


ATLANTIS 91 


might have thrown overboard, as he himself clearly 
felt, more than was good of what both self-acquired 
and imposed culture had formed in him. He had no 
desire to turn into another animal in Circe’s stables. 

It was as if Ingigerd were the very incarnation of the 
evil Psyche, so few of a man’s feelings were concealed 
from her. She knew what fight Frederick had just 
fought and she knew he had conquered. 

“Oh, I wanted to become a nun once myself,” she 
said, and began in a mixture of truth and fiction to 
prattle of a year she had spent in a convent. “I 
wanted to turn good, but didn’t get very far. I am 
religious. Really I am. I can say so with a clear 
conscience. Anybody with whom I don’t feel I could 
pray to God, is disgusting to me. Perhaps, after all, 
I shall end by being a nun, but not because I am pious.” 
She did not realise how egregiously she was contra- 
dicting herself. “Oh, no! It wouldn’t occur to me 
to be pious. I don’t believe in anything but myself. 
Life is short, and nothing is coming afterward. A 
person ought to enjoy life. A person who deprives him- 
self of a single enjoyment sins against himself, beside 
practising self-deception.” 

She was led to speak of her mother. Frederick was 
startled by the hatred, the vulgarity with which she 
referred to her. 

“TI could kill her,” she said, “ although, or just be- 
cause she is my mother.” Her face lost its purity of 
expression and’ assumed an ugly, repulsive look. “ With 
papa it is different. But it gets to be an awful nuisance 
always to be dragging him about with me.” 

The stewardess came in. She spoke to Ingigerd in 
a loud, cheery way. } 

* Better here than down below, isn’t it, Miss? ” 


92 ATLANTIS 


, 

She bolstered up her cushions, rearranged her cover- 
ings, and left again. 

“The silly thing has already fallen in love with me, 
too,” said Ingigerd. 

* Why am I sitting here? ” Frederick thought, and 
was about to attempt in all kindness to remove the cat- 
aract from the eyes of the foolish little creature. Why 
did great waves of pity keep sweeping over him? Pity 
for which she did not ask. Why could he not rid him- 
self of the idea of innocence, of chastity, of the uncon- 
taminated while in the presence of this child fiend? 
She seemed pure and unsullied, anti each capricious 
movement, each remark of hers only heightened the im- 
pression of touching helplessness, 

** All love is pity.” This sentence of Schopenhauer’s, 


vy which he held to be both true and paradoxical, flashed 


into his mind. He took one of her dolls in his hand, 
and tried in the kindly way that he had acquired with 
his patients to make Ingigerd Hahlstrém understand 
that one does not go through life unpunished in the 
belief that life is mere doll’s play. 7 

** Your dolls,” he said, ‘‘ are actually beasts of prey. 
Woe to you, if you don’t realise they are beasts before 
they bury their claws in your flesh and rend you with 
their fangs.” 

She gave a short laugh without answering. She com- 
plained of a pain in her breast. 

* You’re a physician. Won’t you examine me?” 

* 'That’s Doctor Wilhelm’s business,’? Frederick an- 
swered brusquely. 

** Well,” she said, “if I am in pain and you as a 
physician can stop the pain, but don’t want to, your 
friendship cannot amount to much.” 

Frederick did not turn a deaf ear to this correct rea- 


ATLANTIS 93 


soning. He had long before realised that her delicate 
constitution was with difficulty holding the balance 
between debit and credit. Each instant it was m dan- 
ger of losing its balance. 

‘“‘ Tf I were your physician,” he said, “ I should send 
you to live for three years with a German country pas- 
tor, or an American farmer. I should not let you see 
anybody but the old pastor or the old farmer and his 
wife and their daughters. I should not let you go to 
see a play, let alone appear on the stage yourself. It 
is those cursed variety shows that have sent you to 
the dogs, physically and morally.” 

“TI am a ruffian,” he thought, “ and there’s medicine 
for her.” | 

* Do you want to become a farmer? ” 

ce Why? 99 

** Because you are already a pastor,” she laughed. 

The conversation was interrupted by the screeching 
of a cockatoo on a stand in the back of the cabin. Until 
then Frederick had not noticed it. 

** What else will be turning up? Where did you get 
that beast? ” 

She laughed again. 

** Please give me the beast. Koko! Koko!” Fred- 
erick arose and let the great, rosy-white seafarer clamber 
on his hand. “TI like animals better than I do most 
people I meet,” she said. 

The bird kept screaming ‘‘ Cockatoo!” until Fred- 
erick felt it fairly applied to him. 

In the meantime the Roland, sinking into deep troughs 
and climbing over watery mountain crests in an ocean 
that was like a great machine regularly at work, had 
plowed its way into fog. The siren was bellowing. 

“Fog?” exclaimed Ingigerd. Every bit of blood 


94 ATLANTIS 


vanished from her face, which was already too pale. 
* But I am never afraid,” she added immediately, took 
a bonbon in her mouth, and let the cockatoo nibble at 
it. The bird unfeelingly trod on the girl’s beautifully 
heaving breast. She made it sing Stille Nacht, heilige 
Nacht and some well-known music-hall airs, and told 
stories of her menagerie. 

Every instant Frederick had to perform some small 
service, and while she was giving an enthusiastic de- 
scription of a little monkey from Java that she had once 
owned, he asked himself whether he was a physician, a 
nurse, a hairdresser, a chambermaid, or a steward, and 
- whether Ingigerd Hahlstrém would not in the end reduce 
him to a messenger boy. 

He yearned to be on deck in the open air. 

Soon after, Achleitner entered with an anxious, ques- 
tioning expression in his eyes, and Ingigerd dismissed 
Frederick most ungraciously. There was a look of 
hatred in her glance. But scarcely was Frederick out- 
side in the fog with the knob of the door still in his 
hand, when it seemed to him as if ropes and chains, 
the chains of an enslaved man, were dragging him back 
to the girl’s couch. 


XXIV 


*'Wuat is to become of me?” Frederick questioned 
himself. He scarcely heard Hans Fiillenberg’s jolly 
shout of greeting as the young man reeled past. Hans 
Fiillenberg did not fail to observe whose door it was 
that Frederick von Kammacher had just closed behind 
him, nor that, as he stood there with the knob still in 
his hand, he seemed to be in a state of indecision and 
absorption. 


ATLANTIS 95 


The siren was sending up its deafening roar. It was 
that wild, fearful, ascending cry, as if torn from the 
breast of a monster bull, which he had first heard on 
the tender. There was something menacing in it, and 
at the same time something of an anxious warning. 
Frederick never heard it without applying menace and 
warning to himself. Likewise, the driving mist seemed 
to be a reflection of his soul; or his soul a reflection of 
the driving mist and also of the vessel, as it struggled 
onward into the unknown, unseeing and unseen. He 
stepped over to the railing and looked straight down 
the ship’s side. There he could tell with what tremen- 
dous rapidity the Roland was cleaving the water. 

*‘Isn’t man’s courage utter madness? ” he thought. 
Could any one, from captain to the lowest sailor, prevent 
the propeller-shaft from snapping at any moment? 
The screw was constantly rising and buzzing in the 
air. Who could sight a vessel in time to prevent the 
collision that would inevitably smash in the thin walls 
of the great hollow body? Who could hope to avoid 
one of the many derelicts drifting in the fog almost 
submerged? What would happen if the might of the 
waves were to hurl that great lumped mass of wood and 
iron against the Roland’s side? What would happen 
if the engines were to break down? If a boiler were to 
prove unequal to the uninterrupted strain put upon it? 
Then, too, icebergs were met with in those waters. And 
suppose the storm were to grow worse. 

The things that European civilisation has accom- 
plished are tremendous. The trouble is, the object to 
which the means are applied is not worthy of the means. 
The how is great. The wherefore receives only a stam- 
mering reply. So much is certain, that the life of the 
average man to-day is fuller of adventure and heroism 


96 ATLANTIS 


than the life of a bold adventurer a hundred and fifty 
years ago. 

Frederick went to the smoking-room on deck. He 
found the card players, Doctor Wilhelm, Arthur Stoss, 
Professor Toussaint and some more gentlemen gathered 
over their afternoon coffee. 

** Hullo! ’”? they shouted when he appeared in the 
doorway. 

The room smelled strong of coffee and the pungent 
odour of tobacco. In the instant that Frederick held 
the door open, the wreaths of mist and heavy tobacco 
smoke met. 

“ What’s the matter, gentlemen? ” Frederick asked. 

** Did you operate on the dancer,” someone cried, “ to 
remove that mole two inches from her backbone right 
over her left hip? ” 

Frederick turned pale, and said nothing. Had he 
uttered a single word, the result might have been a 
scandal, perhaps even a duel, out there on the high 
seas. 

He seated himself beside Doctor Wilhelm and acted 
as if the shout of greeting and the unknown man’s ques- 
tion had not referred to him. Doctor Wilhelm pro- 
posed a game of chess. Frederick accepted, and while 
playing, he had time to choke down his humiliation and 
resentment. He glanced about furtively to find the 
speaker. 

“There are some people, Doctor von Kammacher,” 
Arthur Stoss said in a raised voice, “* who leave their 
decency in Europe when they travel to America, though 
that does not reduce the price of the passage.” 

The man at whom the remark was aimed left it uw 
answered. 

"But, Mr. Stoss,” said an elderly man from Ham- 


ATLANTIS ore 


burg, whose conscience in regard to the offence thrust 
upon Frederick was evidently clear, “ we’re not in a 
ladies’ parlour, and we needn’t take jokes amiss.” 

**T am not in favour of jokes,” said Stoss, “ that are 
made at the expense of persons who are near at hand, 
but not present, especially when a lady is concerned. 
I am still less in favour of them when they are coarse 
and indecent.” 

“Oh, Mr. Stoss,” rejoined the man from Hamburg, 
“everything in its place. I have nothing against ser- 
mons, but we’re having bad weather here on the ocean 
and this room is not a church.” 

** Besides, nobody mentioned names,” another man 
said. 

Here the American jackanapes joined in the cross 
talk. 

“When Mr. Stoss is in New York,” he said drily, 
“he will hold services every night at Webster and 
Forster’s.” 

“Some American youngsters are celebrated for their 
cheek,”? Stoss countered. 

** Directly after the celebrated Barrison sisters’ ap- 
pearance, after the song ‘Linger Longer Loo,’ Mr. 
Stoss will raise his hands to heaven and beg the audience 
to pray.” The American spoke without moving a mus- 
cle of his face. He had the last word. The next in- 
stant the slim young fellow was outside the door. 

Arthur Stoss had the pleasure of knowing he was 
a fool for his pains. But, like Frederick, he paid no 
attention to the thrust, or to the laughter it pro- 
voked. 

“People are very much mistaken,” he said, turning 
to Professor Toussaint, who was sitting beside him and 
to whom he had been introduced a few minutes béfore, 


98 ATLANTIS 


“if they suppose ‘that morality among vaudeville per- 
formers is laxer than among any other set of persons. 
It’s an absolutely false assumption. A performer 
above the average, who must always be at the very 
height of his powers, has to practise moderation to the 
point of abstinence if he wants to remain on top. ~ Does 
anybody suppose that a loose life is compatible with 
those startlingly bold feats\that an acrobat does every 
/day and tries to improve upon every day? Damn it! 


‘ It’s something to make your ordinary mortal marvel at. 


Why, to do any one of the many things we do, we have 
to practise asceticism and chastity, and patiently peg 
away day after day at hard, dangerous work. Your 
plain business man, who never omits his glass of beer, 
has no idea what it is like.”? He continued to sing the 
praises of vaudeville actors. 

“May I ask what your specialty is, Mr. Stoss?” 
asked Hans Fiillenberg. 

“A very easy specialty, once you know how. But 
if it should ever come to a duel between you and me, 
young man, you’d have to choose what eye or ear or 
tooth you’d be ready to part with.” 

**He’s as good a shot as Carver,” someone said. 
** He can take the middle right out of an ace three or 
four times in succession.” 

* Just like any other display of skill. But don’t for 
a moment suppose, gentlemen, that even if a man has 
arms and doesn’t have to hold the gun with his feet and 
pull the trigger with his toes, that he learns how to do 
it without sweating and self-denial and endless pa- 
tience.” {2 

“ Somebody said you play the violin like Sarasate,” 
said Hans Fiillenberg. 

“Not exactly. Nor need I, considering the way I 


ATLANTIS 99 


was born. But I am fond of music and my audiences 
go wild over my playing.” 

Captain von Kessel entered. He was received with 
a general “ Ah!” Through the door burst a great wave 
of sunlight. 

“The barometer is rising, gentlemen.” | 

The fog had lifted, and now the men in the smoking- 
room realised that the Roland was rocking no more than 
easily and comfortably and was making its way with 
majestic speed. 

This acted like a charm. The captain left the door 
open and had Pander hook it back. A man, who had 
been lying asleep in a corner — in that half sleep which 
is the mildest symptom of seasickness — rose to a sitting 
posture and rubbed his eyes. Hans Fiillenberg and a 
number of other men hastened out on deck. Doctor 
Wilhelm and Frederick, who had lost the game, fol- 
lowed. 


XXV 


Tuer two physicians paced the full length of the prom- 
enade deck. The air was mild. The ship was moving 
quietly, as if its great body took delight in pushing 
onward through none but low waves. It was surprising 
to see how gay the life‘on deck was. They were con- 
stantly raising their hats and making way for somebody. 
The stewards had carried the news of the good weather 
down to the passengers in their stuffy cabins, and 
all the seasick travellers had come crawling on deck. 
There was much talking and laughing. Each moment 
brought fresh surprise over the galaxy of merry women 
that had kept themselves stowed away in the Roland’s 
interior, It was just an ordinary Saturday afternoon 


® 
. * 


100 ATLANTIS 


‘in January, yet suddenly an atmosphere of festivity 
prevailed not to be outdone by a Christmas eve. 

Hans Fiillenberg passed by. He was cracking jokes 
for everybody’s benefit and flirting desperately with his 
Englishwoman, who had recovered from her seasickness. 
She had found a friend, a woman in a fur cap and coat, 
with a magnificent crown of light hair, like a Swedish 
woman’s. She seemed to be greatly amused by Fiillen- 
berg’s poor jokes and poor English. He had abstracted 
her muff and was alternately conveying it to his stomach, 
his heart, and—this very passionately —his mouth. 
The young American jackanapes was promenading with 
his Canadian, who looked very haughty and blasé, yet 
much fresher. ‘The delicate creature seemed to be shiv- 
ering with cold, though she was wearing an elegant coat 
of Canadian sable, which reached to her knees. Fred- 
erick greeted the clothing manufacturer, whom his 
steward had helped up on deck. He had been lying in 
his cabin more dead than alive, and his steward had been 
feeding him on nothing but Malaga grapes. 

Ingigerd was holding court on the port side in front 
of her cabin, the door to which stood open, it flattering 
her vanity to have the many promenaders see and envy 
the privilege she was enjoying. 

_ “If it is agreeable to you, Doctor Wilhelm, let us 

9% remain‘this side of the Rubicon. That little girl slightly 
bores me. By the way, can you tell me how I came 
to bring down on myself that shout when I entered the 
smoking-room and that man’s vulgar remark? To be 
sure, as a physician and free-thinker it’s a matter of 
indifference to me.” 

* Oh,” said Wilhelm, trying by an air of lightness to 
appease Frederick, “ this is all it was. Fiillenberg prob- 
ably saw you coming out of Miss Hahlstrém’s cabin, 


7% 4 ) ) 08 >, > 2 >, Sa, ay 
; ME Soar rae a he Fs a alse > 
x * , > > » as ae o] ie | 


and said something in the smoking-room. You know 
his mischievous way.” 

“ T’]l box his ears,’ said Frederick. 

“‘ The trouble is, the little girl is making herself gen- 
erally conspicuous. The worst rumours are afloat about 
‘her. All men seem alike to her, whether stewards, fire- 
men, sailors, or cabin-boys. And that greasy Achleit- 
ner! I assure you, all over the ship, in the forecastle, 
among the stewards when they polish the silver, and in 
the officers’ cabins, they do nothing but titter and laugh 
at her and Achleitner and anybody falling under sus- 
picion on her account.” 

“Don’t you think that’s slander? ” 

“Why, you and I are physicians. I don’t care a fig 
one way or the other.” 

Frederick laughed. ‘I have set my all on nothing.” 

Suddenly he said: 

* You’re right. I’m of the same opinion. I must 
really throw overboard that old idealistic German Adam 
sticking in me like a Sunday afternoon preacher.” 

The two men laughed. Their mood turned merrier, 
chiming in with the general atmosphere of hilarity. 

One reason for this predominating sense of happiness 
was the fact that all the passengers, after struggling 
with nausea and sleeplessness during those miserable, 
crawling, endless hours in the doleful grave of their 
cabins, had learned to appreciate the value of mere 
healthy existence. Merely to live, merely to live! That 
was the cry that rang in every step, every laugh, every 
word, drowning all care. None of those concerns which 
each of them had dragged on board, whether from Eu- 
rope or America, now had the least might. Merely to 
live was to win in the great lottery. They knew sun- 
shine follows rain, and they said to themselves, “ If 


“yom Sila. 5 oS ATLANTIS 


worse comes to worst, you will willingly put up with 
bread and salt and a hoe and a vegetable garden, and 
no one in the world will be a happier mortal than 
you.” 

Those promenading men and women were each glad 
of the other’s existence. 'They loved one another and 
were ready without hesitation to commit all sorts of fol- 
lies, deeming them mere bagatelles, which on solid land 
they would never have condoned in themselves. Their 
rejoicing was a crucible melting together all the barriers 
by which convention divides man from man. They ex- 
perienced a sense of relief and liberation, and drew in 
deep breaths of this atmosphere of freedom. 

At the captain’s order, the band set up its music 
stands and instruments on deck amidships; and when 
the blithe strains resounded through the whole of the 
Roland, that was the climax of festivity. For half an 
hour it seemed as if the few clouds floating in the blue 
sky, the steamer, the people on the steamer, and the 
ocean had agreed to dance a quadrille. 

For moments at a time the waves would form the 
droll, chubby-cheeked face of a jolly old man. All at 
once the dreadful old man of the sea had turned good- 
humoured. He even seemed to be in a jocular mood 
and displayed a certain clumsy vanity in letting his pup- 
pets, swarms of flying fish, dance their dance, too, in 
a circle about the Roland. Perhaps, at his bidding, a 
whale would soon be spouting. Indeed, within a few 
minutes, the immigrants on the fore-deck were shouting, 
* Dolphins! ” 

The gentlemen could not for any length of time avoid 
Ingigerd. | 

* Theridium triste, the gallows spider, you know,” 
said Wilhelm, as they approached her, 


ATLANTIS ; 103 


“ How so?” said Frederick, slightly startled. 

“You know what a gallows spider does near an ant 
nest. It sits on the top of its blade of grass, and when 
a myrmidon passes below, it throws a little skein of cob- 
web at its head. The ant does the rest. It gets tangled 
up until it is absolutely helpless, and then the tiny little 
spider comfortably eats it up.” 

“If you had seen her dance,” said Frederick, “ you 
would be more inclined to assign her the réle of the ant 
throttled by the spider.” 

“JT don’t know who,” said Wilhelm, “ but some poet 
says, the sex is strongest when it is weak.” 

Ingigerd was able to boast a new sensation, which 
she owed to Mr. Rinck, the officer in charge of the mail, 
a pretty little dog, a ball of white wool, scarcely larger 
than a man’s two fists put together. The polar bear in 
miniature was barking wildly in its ridiculous thin 
falsetto at the great ship’s cat, which Mr. Rinck was 
holding to its nose. 

“With your permission, Mr. Rinck, we shall sleep 
well to-night,” said Wilhelm. 

“IT always sleep well,’ replied the other phlegmati- 
cally. Close to the cat’s soft, heavy, hanging body, his 
cigarette, as always, was burning between the fingers of 
his right hand. 

The cat spat, the dog barked. The piping sound 
drilled Frederick’s ears like needle pricks. Ingigerd 
laughed and kissed the little yelper. 

Wilhelm began a conversation by telling of the tre- 
mendous amount of work Mr. Rinck had to do between 
Cuxhaven and New York. 

** Just take a look here, Doctor von Kammacher,” he 
said, opening a door nearby, through which one could 
look into a deep, square pit filled half way up to the 


104 ATLANTIS 


top with thousands of packages of all sizes. ‘* Mr. 
Rinck has to arrange all of these.” 

*‘ Exclusive of the letters,” Mr. Rinck supplemented 
phlegmatically. 

“ Theridium triste,” thought Frederick. He seemed 
to himself like an ant trying head over heels to escape 
the spell of the little spider, whose golden cobweb in 
long, open strands was luring on its victims. 

* That Rinck,” said Wilhelm, as they resumed their 
promenading, “is a peculiar sort of chap. It is worth 
the while to get to know him. Twenty years ago he 
suffered hard luck from a woman of the same type as 
little Miss Hahlstrém. Men should never marry women 
of that type. Ever since, he has been indifferently facing 
every sort of death on all the waters of the globe, not 
to mention an attempt at suicide. You ought to hear 
him talk. It is very difficult to get him to do it, because 
he doesn’t drink. You can’t succeed until you have been 
on four or five trips with him. People speak a great 
deal of fatalism, but to most of them the idea is merely 
a paper idea. To Rinck it is not a paper idea.” 

The life on deck kept assuming a more and more un- 
concerned, mundane aspect. Frederick was astonished 
to see so many persons from Berlin whom he knew by 
sight. Professor Toussaint introduced himself, and led 
Frederick to his wife, who was lying stretched out in a 
steamer chair. Their attempt at what is called conver- 
sation resulted in a few sickly sprouts. 

“ T am making this trip at the invitation of an Ameri- 
can friend,” Toussaint explained somewhat condescend- 
ingly, and mentioned the name of a_ well-known 
millionaire. ‘* Even if I receive orders over there, I will 
not allow myself to be persuaded into making America 
my home. Interest in art should be elevated —’ The 


ATLANTIS : 105 


pale, aristocratic man with the care-worn expression went 
on to expatiate upon his hopes and troubles, while his 
wife, who was still beautiful, looked on with a blasé ex- 
pression of irony. Probably without being conscious of 
it, Professor Toussaint too frequently referred to the 
United States as the dollar land. 

On the after-deck the passengers in unrestrained jol- 
lity, had begun to dance. It was Hans Fiillenberg, the 
ever vivacious Berlinese, who had taken the lead. In- 
spired by the Strauss waltz that the band was playing 
he had engaged the lady in the fur coat. A number of 
other couples followed their example, and there, under 
the bright sky, an informal ball was opened, which did 
not end until sundown. 

When the musicians with their shining brass instru- 
ments were about to make their way inconspicuously 
below deck, the passengers detained them, and in the 
twinkling of an eye, a large collection was taken up. 


Thereupon the dance music began again, even blither 
than before. 


XXVI 


Doctor WitHELM was summoned away, and after a 
while Frederick succeeded in taking leave of Toussaint 
and his wife. He remained alone. The clear heavens, 
the deep blue sea, smooth as glass, calmed as if by a 
miracle, the music, the dancing, the sunlight, and the 
dear, sweet, pacifying, all-forgiving letter of his mother 
— it was in his pocket — awakened in him a fresh, 
pleasant sense of vitality. 

“ Life,’ he said to himself, “is always this way or 
that, a moment filled with pain or pleasure, with dark- 
ness or brightness, with sunlight or heavy, black clouds ; 


106 ATLANTIS 


and according to the moment in which we view our past 
and future, these will darken or brighten. Should ex- 
istence in the shining light possess lesser reality than 
existence in the dark? ‘No, it should not,” was the 
answer that came from everything within and about 
him, filling him with youthful, almost childlike joy. 

Frederick had pushed back his slouched hat, had 

unbuttoned his light overcoat, and was standing with 
his arms crooked over the railing. He looked out upon 
the sea. He felt the pulse beats of the engines, his ears 
were filled with the pliant, melodious chords of the Vien- 
nese waltz; the whole world had turned into a brilliant, 
lively, sparkling ballroom. He had suffered and 
caused others to suffer. Now he embraced all those | 
through whom he had suffered and who had suffered 
through him, and seemed to wed them in blissful intoxi- 
cation. 
_ At this point Ingigerd Hahlstrém passed by with the 
giant Von Halm. Frederick heard her say she did not 
dance, that dancing was an insipid pleasure. With 
that, he started away from the railing, went up to the 
Canadian, and in a peculiar, fiery German manner ruth- 
lessly drew her away from the young American, who 
was completely taken aback. It was evident that the 
delicate, exotic woman, whose breast rose and fell con- 
vulsively, took pleasure in that strong conqueror’s arm 
as they circled about in the dance. 

At the conclusion of the dance, he found himself under 
the necessity of murdering French and English with 
her for a time and was very glad when he could grace- 
fully deliver her over again to the jealous young Amer- 
ican. 

Stoss was being transported across the deck by his 
valet, who, as always, held him by his coat collar. 


ATLANTIS . 107 


“My private overland and oversea express,” he 
called to Frederick. 

Frederick pulled up a steamer chair for him in a 
sudden impulse to chat with Stoss. 

“ Tf the weather remains like this,’ said Stoss, after 
his valet had carefully and skilfully seated him in the 
chair, “ we can reach Hoboken some time on Tuesday. 
But only if the weather does remain like this. The 
captain tells me that when we are running under full 
steam, as now, we make sixteen knots an hour.” 

Frederick started. So Tuesday this life under the 
same roof with Ingigerd was to end. 

Frederick had been profoundly humiliated by the 
coarse insult offered him in the smoking-room. He 
knew of no other way to escape the impression of it 
except by a sort of ostrich policy. For that reason he 
had passed over the incident lightly when speaking to 
Doctor Wilhelm. Once his feeling of delicacy, smarting 
like a sensitive nerve, had ceased to ache so intensely, 
he looked upon the scandal much as a somnambulist 
would look upon the thing that has awakened him and 
guarded him against a humiliating fall. For more than 
half an hour his passion for the little devil of a dancer 
had turned into disgust and repugnance, until now he 
suddenly had to admit once again that separation from 
her was inconceivable. 

* That little dancer is a piquant wench,” said Stoss, . 
as if he had divined Frederick’s thoughts. ‘ It would 
not seem at all strange to me if an inexperienced man 
were to fall into her toils. I think she resembles one 
of the younger Barrison sisters, who sing ‘ Linger 
Longer Lucy, Linger Longer Loo.? A man must cer- 
tainly don armour in dealing with her.” 

“I am completely at a loss to understand,” lied 


108 ATLANTIS 


Frederick, “ how I ever came to fall under suspicion 
with that creature. She is of absolutely no interest to 
me.” 

** Good Lord, Doctor von Kammacher! Who doesn’t 
fall under suspicion with her?” He laughed unblush- 
ingly. “I myself did.” 

Frederick suffered. He looked sidewise at the arm- 
less trunk, and his soul writhed in humiliation at the 
thought of his own ridiculousness. 

Stoss went on to philosophise on erotics in general. 
He, the Don Juan without arms, read Frederick a lec- 
ture on the art of handling women. ‘This led to his 
boasting, which detracted markedly from his quality of 
fineness. His intellect also shrank in direct proportion 
to the increase of his vanity. Something seemed to be 
working in him impelling him to impress people at all 
costs with his successes as a man. 

A servant-girl led two children by. Frederick drew 
a breath of relief, for she diverted Stoss from his un- 
savoury theme. 

“Well, Rosa,” he called, “ how is Mrs. Liebling? ” 
It was his habit to obtrude himself upon everybody. 
From the gossip of Bulke, his valet, he had learned of 
Rosa and her cross. ‘The difficult lady she served was 
the excitable person of whom the barber had told Fred- 
erick and with whom he was acquainted from certain 
impressions of his hearing. Rosa, who was carrying 
Ella Liebling, a girl of five years, on her crimson arm, 
looked pleased and laughed. _ 

“She is not coming on deck, She’s taken up with 
fortune-telling and table-turning.” 

Bulke, in whose eyes Rosa seemed to have found un- 
qualified favour, took Siegfried Liebling, a boy of seven, 


ATLANTIS | 109 


from her hand and helped her place both children safely 
in steamer chairs. - 

“There is nothing to beat a crazy woman,” Stoss 
declared. “ That Mrs. Liebling actually called in Mr. 
Pfundner, the head-steward, to help her with Rosa ”— 
the very Rosa, who unwearyingly and self-sacrificingly 
worked for her day and night, in good weather and 
bad. The worst to be said against her was that at 
utmost she was a little too ready with her tongue. 


XXVIT 


Tue music was still playing, the sun was still shining 
from a slightly clouded sky. On the dry deck the 
travelling city, in the gayest, most superficial mood, was 
still dancing in the face of the infiniteness of heaven 
and sea. A steward came up to Frederick and pre- 
sented the second engineer, who brought a message from 
Doctor Wilhelm asking Frederick to come to him im- 
mediately. The engineer led Frederick to the engine- 
room and down a perpendicular iron ladder. The 
warm, heavy smell of oil almost robbed Frederick of 
his breath. The downward climb seemed endless. 

On all sides the engines were working. Frederick 
glanced at the gigantic cylinders, in which the com- 
pressed steam was moving pistons up and down like 
pump handles. The pistons communicated their mo- 
tion to the big shaft running aft along the keel to the 
stern, and the revolutions of the shaft in turn pro- 
duced the revolutions of the screw propelling the vessel 
across the Atlantic. 

Oilers holding oil cans and waste clambered in and 


110 ATLANTIS 


out of the rotating masses of iron with astounding 
sureness and boldness. ‘To graze one of the fly-wheels, 
or to step one inch within the unguarded circle of their 
revolution, was to receive a deadly blow. Here was 
the heart and soul of the vessel, the real modern miracle 
of strength, the like of which no age in the past has been 
able to produce. An iron soul, a steely heart. It was 
as if one were descending below earth into the glowing 
workshop of Vulcan of old, the lame god, who did not 
demonstrate the full skill of his divinity until our 
times. 

Still deeper down went the descent, to where, from 
numerous shovels handled by almost naked helots, coal 
was flying into the white heat under the boilers, into 
a row of gaping jaws of fire. Frederick felt as if he 
had reached the heart of a crater. It was a black shaft 
smelling of coal, slag, and burning things. Appar- 
ently it was lighted only by the constant opening of the 
furnace doors, spitting white heat. How was it possi- 
ble for such a conflagration to be contained in the 
Roland’s interior without reducing the whole to 
ashes? What a conquest to fight such a sea of fire, 
to keep it in check, and carry it through sea and storm; 
to manage that it should carry itself three or six thou- 
sand miles in the ocean in fair weather or foul, hidden 
away and absolutely innocuous. 

Frederick panted for breath. The glowing heat of 
the abyss instantly brought the perspiration pouring out 
on his face and neck. He was so absorbed in the novelty 
of the impressions that he completely forgot he was sur- 
rounded by water about twenty feet under the surface 
of the sea. Suddenly, he became aware of Doctor Wil- 
helm’s presence, and in the same instant saw a man 
entirely naked stretched out like a corpse, a white body 


ATLANTIS 111 


on the black coal dust. The man had ceased to 
breathe. 3 

In a second Frederick, now wholly the physician, had 
Doctor Wilhelm’s stethoscope in his hand and was lis- 
tening to the man’s heart. His mates, blackened with 
coal from head to foot, were ceaselessly at work in the 
engine’s unremitting service, shovelling coal, opening 
the furnace doors, and slamming them shut. They 
scarcely cast a glance at their fallen comrade, and that 
only when they stopped to gulp a glass of beer or 
water. 

‘It was hardly three minutes ago,” said Doctor Wil- 
helm, “ that he broke down. That man over there, the 
one who has just washed himself, is his successor.” 

** He was just about to throw coal into the furnace,” 
explained the engineer who had called for Frederick, 
shouting at the top of his voice to make himself heard 
above the clanging of the shovels and the banging of 
the iron doors, “ when his shovel flew out of his hand 
about twelve feet away and almost struck a coal-trim- 
mer. He was hired in Hamburg. The moment he 
set foot on board, I thought, ‘ If only you pull through, 
my boy.? He joked about himself. He said, ‘If my 
heart is good.’ I was sorry for him. He wanted to 
cross the great pond, and that was his only way of 
getting over. He wanted, no matter how, to see his 
brother again, his only living relative, or somebody 
else. They hadn’t seen each other for fourteen years.” 

“ Exitus,” said Frederick, after a prolonged investi- 
gation of the man’s heart. Even a few moments after 
the stethoscope had been removed, one could see the 
ring it made on his bluish, waxen skin. His chin 
dropped. They put it back in place, and Frederick 
bound his jaws with his white handkerchief. ‘“ He had 


112 ATLANTIS 


a bad fall,’ Frederick remarked. It may actually have 
been the unfortunate fall to which the helot owed his 
death. There was a deep bleeding gash in his temple 
from the edge of a large nut. ‘ Probably a heart 
stroke,” Frederick added, “the result of the heat and 
overexertion.” He looked at the dead man, then at 
his mates, naked, blackened, illuminated by the jaws 
of the glowing furnaces, and thought of the fifth com- 
mandment, ** Thou shalt not kill.” If we were to take 
the commandment literally, how far should we get? 

The physicians mounted on deck, and several of the 
men picked up the victim of civilisation, the modern 
galley-slave, still covered with the sweat of his fearful 
occupation. With the handkerchief about his head, he 
looked as if he were suffering from toothache. They 
carried him up out of the glowing pit to the cabin set 
aside for dead bodies. 

Doctor Wilhelm had to notify the captain. Nobody 
on deck, where the band was playing the last measures, 
was to suspect that a stoker had died. With the help 
of the Red Cross sister, they stretched him on a mat- 
tress, and within a short time a circle of the higher 
officials of the vessel, at their head the captain, and 
among them the purser and the physicians, were gath- 
ered about the corpse. 

Captain von Kessel ordered the stoker’s death to be 
kept secret, particularly requesting the two physicians 
not to mention it. Formalities had to be gone through, 
documents had to be drawn up and signed. This kept 
them busy until dark, when the first call for dinner 
was trumpeted across the deck and through the gang- 
ways of the first-class section. 


ATLANTIS | 113 


XXVIII 


Freperick went to his cabin and removed the grey 
suit he had worn in the purgatory of the stoke-hole. 
He put on striped trousers, a black waistcoat, and 
black frock coat. By the time he appeared in the 
dining-room, a lively procession of brilliant toilettes was 
already making its way there. Almost all the ladies 
of the first class came rustling in. Frederick from his 
seat observed that many of them had to stop for an 
instant at the doorway to pluck up their courage. 
Then, with a charmingly humorous smile, they would 
conquer their dread of seasickness, particularly threat- 
ening in the dining-room, and step over the threshold. 

Save for the slight quiver that ran through the walls 
and ceilings of the whole vessel, its motion was scarcely 
perceptible. The music began, and the swarm of stew- 
ards in livery, who came hurrying in, could serve each 
guest with a full plate of soup without need of bal- 
ancing. 

“ A full-dress dinner,” said the captain with a con- 
tented glance about the room as he seated himself. 

Fish was already being served when Ingigerd entered 
on the arm of the very ungainly and very ordinary look- 
ing Achleitner. At the sight of her absurd get-up, 
Frederick felt like sinking through the floor. The bar- 
ber had piled her beautiful light hair into a fearful 
mountain of puffs, and about her narrow shoulders she 
wore a Spanish shawl, as if to represent Carmen — a 
very pitiful Carmen, who provoked jeers and jibes from 
one end of the table to the other. 

* What deadly green stockings!” Frederick thought, 
as he choked down a piece of fish with the bones in it. 


114 ATLANTIS 


“Why in the name of sense does she wear those bronze | 
slippers? ” 

“Some chalk, please, for the lady,” said one man. 
** She is going to dance the tight rope for us.” 

Mischievous looks and remarks flew about the table. 
Both the ladies and the gentlemen choked over their fish 
or wine and had to hold their napkins to their lips. 
Not all of their remarks were pronounced sotto voce, 
and among the card players, who were again drinking 
champagne, the jokes aimed at Ingigerd and Achleitner 
were particularly loud and coarse. 

Could Frederick believe his eyes? Terror shot to his 
heart. That sad little monstrosity was walking toward 
him — stood next to him in compromising intimacy — 
was saying poutingly: 

** When are you going to pay me a visit again? ” 

Frederick made some inconsequential reply. 

Necks in standing collars, bare throats encircled with 
gold chains and pearls turned toward the captain’s ta- 
ble. Frederick could not recall ever having had an 
experience so painfully humiliating. Ingigerd saw 
nothing and felt nothing. Achleitner, however, seemed 
to be rather ill at ease under the perceptible cross-fire 
of the animated company, and tried to lead her away. 
Finally, she left the tortured man, saying: 

“My, you’re dull and stupid! I don’t like you.” 
At which the captain’s corner burst into a prolonged 
laugh, which was a relief to everybody’s but Frederick’s 
feelings. 

“IT assure you,” said Frederick, with a tolerable at- 
tempt at dry irony, ‘‘ I don’t know what I have done to 
deserve this distinction, or what I shall do to deserve 
it in the future.” 


Then they spoke of other things. 


f 


ATLANTIS 115 


The clear weather and the prospect of a peaceful 
night filled the festive diners with undimmed gaiety. 
They ate, they drank, they laughed, they flirted, all 
in the delightful consciousness that they were citizens of 
the departing nineteenth century, with the probability 
of being citizens of the even grander twentieth century. 


XXIX 


Arter dinner the two physicians went to Doctor Wil- 
helm’s cabin, where they sat together discussing the 
resultant of modern civilisation. 

“I very much fear, very much, indeed,” said Fred- 
erick, “ that our world-wide means of communication, 
which mankind is supposed to own, really own mankind. 
At least so far, I see no signs that the tremendous work- 
ing capacity of machines has lessened human labour. 
Nobody will deny that our modern machine slavery, on 
so tremendous a scale, is the most imposing slavery 
that has ever existed. And there is no denying that it 
is slavery. Has this age of machinery subtracted from) 
the sum of human misery? No, most emphatically, | 
no! Has it enhanced happiness Anes increased the 
veining for happiness? No, again.” ‘ 

“That is why every three or four men ot culture,” 
said Doctor Wilhelm, “are disciples of Schopenhauer. 
Modern Buddhism is making rapid strides.” 

** Yes,”’ said Frederick, *‘ because we are living in a 
world all the time making a tremendous impression upon 
itself. As a result, it is getting to be more and more 
fearfully bored. The man of the intellectual middle 
class is gaining in prominence, while he is more mediocre 
than he has been in any previous age. At the same 


116 ATLANTIS 


time he is glutted and more blasé. No form of ideal- 
ism, no sort of genuinely great belief can hold its 
ground any longer.” 

**T admit,” said Wilhelm, “ that the great industrial 
corporation, civilisation, is parsimonious of everything 
except human lives and the best that is in the human 
being. It places no value upon thém. It lets them 
rot. But I think there is one comfort. I think civili- 
sation possesses this one good, that it breaks us away 
once for all with the worst savageries of the past. No 
inquisition, for instance, can ever be possible again.” 

“* Are you sure of it? ” asked Frederick. ‘ Don’t you 
think it is strange that alongside the greatest achieve- 
ments of science, alongside Galileo, Kepler, Laplace; 
alongside the spectrum analysis and the law of the 
conservation of energy; alongside Kirchoff and Bunsen; 
alongside steam, gas, electricity, the blindest and most 
antiquated superstitions still survive, powerful as ever? 
I am not so certain that backsliding into the most horri- 
ble times of the Malleus maleficarwm is impossible.” 

Doctor Wilhelm had rung for a steward, who now 
entered. Max Pander appeared at the same time. 

** Doctor von Kammacher, I feel as if we must have 
some champagne. Adolph,” turning to the steward, 
** a bottle of Pommery.” 

“ 'They’re making a big hole in the champagne cel- 
lar,” said Adolph. 

“Of course. ‘The people are all celebrating their 
escape from drowning yesterday and day before yester- 
day.” 

Pander had come at the captain’s order for the 
stoker’s death certificate. The document was lying 
ready in the medicine closet. After Pander had left, 


ATLANTIS 117 


Wilhelm told Frederick some remarkable incidents of 
the dead man. 

‘‘ His name was Zickelmann. There was the begin- 
ning of a letter in his pocket. It was something like 
this: ‘Dear mother, I have not seen you for sixteen 
years. I have forgotten how you look, dear mother. 
I am not doing well, but I must go to America to see 
you once again. It is very sad when a man has no 
relatives in the whole world. Dear mother, I just want 
to look at you, and I really won’t be a burden to you.’ ” 

The champagne appeared. Before long, the first bot- 
tle was replaced by the second. 

** Don’t be surprised if I am immoderate,” said Pied: 
erick. ‘‘ My nerves are in need of it to-day. I have 
to stupefy myself. Perhaps, with the help of this glori- 
ous medicine, I shall be able to sleep a few hours.” 

It was half past ten, and the physicians were still 
sitting together. The wine naturally produced a greater 
degree of intimacy between these two men, who were 
of the same profession and had already become fairly 
well acquainted with each other. It was very pleasant 
to Frederick to unbosom himself. 

He said he had entered the world with too fayourable 
a preconceived notion. In a spirit of idealism he had 
refused the military career for which his father had 
intended him, and had taken up the study of medicine, 
in the belief that he would thus be of most service to 
humanity. He had been deceived. 

“The genuine gardener works for the garden full 
of healthy plants; but our work is devoted to a decaying 
vegetation sprung from diseased germs. That is why 
I took up the fight against mankind’s awfullest enemy, 
the bacteria, I admit that the dreary, patient, labo- 


118 ATLANTIS 


rious work, which bacteriology requires, did not satisfy 
me, either. I didn’t possess the capacity to petrify, 
which is absolutely indispensable in an academic man. 
When I was sixteen years old, I wanted to become a 
painter. Over the dissecting table, I composed verses. 
The thing that I should now most like to be is a free- 
lance writer. From all of which you can see,” he 
concluded, laughing ironically, “ that I have made rather 
a mess of my life.” 

Wilhelm refused to admit it. 

** But I have,” Frederick declared. “I am a genuine 
child of the times, and I am not ashamed of it. The 
greatest intellects of the day are all in a state of inner 
ferment. Every individual of significance is just as 
divided against himself as humanity on the whole. I 
“ refer, of course, only to the leading European races. 
I embody the Pope and Luther, William II and Robes- 
pierre, Bismarck and Bebel, the spirit of the American 
millionaire and the enthusiasm for poverty that was 
the glory of St. Francis of Assisi. I am the maddest 
progressive of my time and the maddest reactionary. 
I despise Americanism, and yet I see in the great Amer- 
ican world-invasion, the dominion of the exploiter, 
something similar to one of the biggest works that Her- 
cules performed in the Augean stables.” 

** Here’s to chaos!” cried Wilhelm. 

They touched glasses. 

“Yes,” said Frederick, “ but only if it gives birth 
to a dancing heaven, or, at least, a dancing star.” 

** Beware of dancing stars,” said Wilhelm, laughing 
and looking at Frederick significantly. 

** What can a man do if his blood is on fire with that 
cursed poison? ” 

Under the influence of the champagne, the sudden 


ATLANTIS | 119 


confession seemed as natural to Wilhelm as to Fred- 
erick. ‘ 

“*'There once was a rat in a cellar hole,’ ®? Wilhelm 
quoted. 

“ Of course, of course,” said Frederick, “ but what 
is to be done against it?*? ‘Then he turned the conver- 
sation to general questions again. ‘‘ Why should a 
man keep himself intact when he has lost his ideals? JI 
have made tabula rasa of my past. I have drowned 
Germany in the ocean. Is Germany really the great, 
strong, united Empire? Is it not rather the booty over 
which God and the devil—-I was about to say the 
Kaiser and the Pope —are still wrangling? You will 
admit that for more than a thousand years, the unifying 
principle was the imperial principle. People talk of 
the Thirty Years’ War as having disintegrated Ger- 
many. I should say it was the thousand years’ war, 
of which the Thirty Years’ War was only the worst 
excess, the worst paroxysm of that plague of religious 
dissension with which the Germans are inoculated. 
And without unity, Germany is a very queer structure. 
Its owners, or its inhabitants, don’t possess it, except 
in a slight degree. And the believer with the tiara 
at Rome tugs and tugs at it, levying extortion under 
the threat of destroying the entire structure; until he 
is actually able to buy it back with the compound inter- 
est that has been accumulating. In that case nothing 
will be left but a heap of ruins. One could shriek and 
tear one’s hair because the German does not see that 
in his basement there is an awful Bluebeard’s chamber. _ 
And not for women alone. He has no inkling of what \, 
an arsenal of clerical instruments of torture lie there 
ready for use — clerical, because they lie ready for the 
infliction of horrible corporal martyrdom in the service 


120 ATLANTIS 


of a bloody, fanatical, papistical belief. Woe, when 
the door to the BlucBeard chamber opens. They are 
continually picking at the lock. Then we shall witness 
all the sanguinary horrors of the Thirty Years’ War, 
the degenerate slaughter-house cruelty of an inquisi- 
tion.” 

*“ 'That’s something we won’t drink a toast to. 
Rather let us toast the healthy, cynically outspoken ideal 
of the American, the exploiter ideal, with its tolerance 
and levelling down.” 

** Yes, a thousand times rather,” said Frederick. 

So they drank a toast to America. 

A second-cabin stewardess led in the Russian Jewess. 
The girl was holding a handkerchief to her nose and 
mouth. Her nose had been bleeding for an hour with- 
out cease. 

** Oh,” she said, retreating a step from the threshold 
back to the deck, “I am in the way.” But Doctor 
Wilhelm insisted on her coming in. 

It turned out that this was not the real mission on 
which the stewardess had come to see Doctor Wilhelm. 
She whispered a few words, unintelligible to the others, 
into his ear. He excused himself to Frederick, asked 
him to look after the Jewess, and left the cabin with 
the stewardess. 


XXX 


“You are a doctor?” asked the Russian Jewess. 

“ Yes,” said Frederick. 

Without wasting many words, he made her lie prone 
on the couch, inserted a tampon in her nose, and used 
other means to stanch the flow of blood. He had kept 
the door to the deck open to let the cigarette smoke out 


ATLANTIS 121 


and the fresh, healing salt airin. The girl lay quietly 
on the couch; and Frederick thought it advisable to look 
through one of Wilhelm’s medical books. 

** So far as I am concerned, you may smoke,” she said 
after a while, having noticed that Frederick absent- 
mindedly started to light a cigarette several times and 
then, recollecting himself, desisted. 

** No,” he said curtly, “ I won’t smoke now.” 

** You might at least offer me a cigarette,” she said. 
**T am bored.” 

“ That’s proper,” he said. ‘A patient should be 
bored.” . 

** Oh, I am not a patient.” 

** Patientia is the Latin for ‘ patience,’ my dear young 
lady. You are not a patient in so far as you are very 
impatient.” 

“If you let me have a cigarette, then I will say ‘ Yes, 
you are right.’ ” 

“IT know I am right, and there can be no question of 
your smoking now.” 

“ But I want to smoke. You are impolite,” she said, 
obstinately kicking up her heel. 

Frederick ordered her to be quiet, and she let her 
foot drop again on the leather upholstery. He looked 
at her with an intentionally exaggerated expression of 
sternness. 

“TI am not your slave, do you understand? Do you 
think I left Odessa, where there is enough ordering 
about, to be ordered about by every stranger I meet? ” 
she grumbled. “Iam cold. Please shut the door.” 

“If you want, I will shut the door,” said Frederick, 
getting up to do so with an air of resignation not alto- 
gether genuine. 

In the morning in the steerage, Frederick and this 


122 ATLANTIS 


Deborah had exchanged a glowing look of understand- 
ing. Now, although, or perhaps because, the wine was 
in his veins, he was eager for Doctor Wilhelm’s return. 
His absence seemed to be unduly prolonged. For a 
time the girl lay silent. Frederick found it necessary 
to examine the tampon in her nostril. As he was doing 
so, he noticed tears in her eyes. 

“What is the matter?” he asked. “ Why are you 
crying? ” 

She suddenly began to beat him with her arms and 
fists, called him a sleek, heartless bourgeois, and wanted 
to jump up; but she had to succumb to Frederick’s 
superior, gentle strength and return to her reclining 
posture. Frederick seated himself as before on an up- 
holstered chair opposite the couch. 

“My dear child,” he said, very gently, “ you are 
behaving queerly, slinging about those honourable epi- 
thets. But we won’t discuss that. You are nervous. 
You are excited. You have no blood in your veins, 
and even if you had a stronger constitution, the con- 
dition of your nerves after the hardships of this trip, 
especially in the steerage, could scarcely be different.” 

**T’ll never travel first class, never! ” 

“Why not?” 

‘** Because, considering the misery in which the ma- 
jority of human beings are languishing, it is a mean 
low thing to do to travel first class. Read Dostoievsky, 
read Tolstoy, read Kropotkin} We are being chased 
like animals. We are being persecuted. It doesn’t 
matter where we die.” 

** It may interest you to know that I ace read them 
all, Kropotkin, Tolstoy, Dostoievsky. But don’t sup- 
pose you are the only persecuted person on earth, I 
am persecuted, too. We are all persecuted,” 


ATLANTIS 123 


“Oh, you are travelling first class and you are not a 
Jew. ITamadJew. Have you the faintest idea of what 
it means to be a Jew in Russia? ” 

*‘ That is why you and I are now travelling to a new 
world,” said Frederick, “ to America, the land of lib- 
erty.” | 

** Indeed! ” she sneered, “I and liberty! I know my 
fate. Don’t you know into what hands I have fallen? 
T am the victim of vile exploiters! ” 

The girl cried, and since she was young and of the 
same delicacy of figure as Ingigerd, only of a very dif- 
ferent race, a dark-haired, dark-eyed race, Frederick 
felt himself perceptibly weakening. His compassion 
grew; and he was well aware that openly expressed sym- 
pathy is the surest approach to love. So he again 
forced himself into a hard, repellent attitude of oppo- 
sition. 

“Now I am nothing but a physician representing 
another physician. What does it concern me, and how 
can I help it, if you have fallen into the hands of ex- 
ploiters? Besides, all of you intellectual Russians are 
hysterical — a trait utterly repugnant to me.” 

She jumped to her feet and wanted torun away. To 
restrain her he caught first her right, then her left 
wrist. She looked at him with such an expression of 
hate and contempt that he could not but be sensitive 
of the girl’s passionate beauty. Her face was of the 
colour that greensickness imparts. Her features were 
exquisitely delicate. In contrast, Ingigerd’s face, with 
which Frederick fleetingly compared hers, seemed un- 
refined, even coarse. Here was the aristocracy of a too 
highly bred race, somewhat faded, to be sure, but at 
that moment all the more seductive. 

“Ugh! Let me go, let me go, I say!” 


124 ATLANTIS 
“ What have I done to you? ” Frederick asked. For 


a moment he was genuinely alarmed, scarcely knowing 
whether he had not been actually guilty of a wrong 
against her. He had been drinking champagne and 
was excited. If someone were to enter now, what would 
he think of him? Even centuries before, had not Poti- 
phar’s wife, from whom Joseph fled, resorted to certain 
successful slanderous means? ‘“ What have I done?” 
he repeated. 

** Nothing,” she said, “ except what you are in the 
habit of doing. You have insulted an unprotected 
girl.” 

** Are you crazy?” he asked. 

Suddenly she answered: “I don’t know.” And in 
that instant the hard, hateful expression of her face 
melted, turning into complete submission, a change 
that went irresistibly to the. heart of a man like © 
Frederick. He forgot himself. He was no longer mas- 
ter of his feelings. 


XXXI 


Tus strange incident of meeting, seeing, loving, and © 
parting forever had passed swiftly as in a dream. Since 
Wilhelm had not yet returned, Frederick, long after 
his visitor had fled, went out on deck, where the exalted 
impression of the starry heavens shining over the in- 
finite expanse of the ocean, purified him, as it were. 
He was neither by nature nor by habit a Don Juan, 
and it astonished him that the unusual, surprising ad- 
venture seemed the most natural thing in the world. 
The deck was empty. Another boy was on guard in 
Pander’s place. The temperature had sunk to below 


ATLANTIS 125 


freezing-point, and a thick coating of hoar-frost lay 
on the rigging. 

As he stood leaning over the railing, he had a painful 
vision of the sum total of life and death within the eons 
of life on earth. His innermost being smarted with 
the pain of it. Death must have existed before the 
beginning. Death and death! That was the limit, he 
thought, of vast sums of trouble, hope, desire, enjoy- 
ment — enjoyment which forthwith consumed itself to 
make way for renewed desire, for illusions of possession, 
for realities of loss, for anguish, for conflicts, for meet- 
ings and partings; all uncontrollable processes bound up 
with suffering and fresh suffering and suffering again. 
It gave him some satisfaction to assume that now that 
the passage was so smooth, his Deborah and all her com- 
panions in suffering were probably lying wrapt in uncon- 
scious sleep, for a time relieved of the great madness of 
life. 

While waiting for Doctor Wilhelm, absorhed in these 
reflections, Frederick involuntarily turned away from 
the edge of the deck, and became aware of a dark mass 
not far from the smoke-stack, cowering in a corner 
against the wall. The thing looked strange to him. 
On stepping closer he saw it was a man on the floor 
asleep, wrapped in his overcoat with his cap drawn 
over his eyes, his bearded head resting on a low camp- 
chair. Frederick was convinced it was Achleitner. 
Why was he lying there in the freezing cold instead of 
in bed? Frederick found the right answer. Not more 
than three paces away was the door of Ingigerd’s cabin ; 
and he was the faithful dog in three senses, the watch- 
dog, the Cerberus, the dog crazed with the rabies of 
jealousy. 

“ Poor fellow,” Frederick said aloud. ‘“* Poor, stupid 


126 ATLANTIS 


Achleitner!” He felt genuine, almost tender sympa- 
thy; and over him came all the woe of the deceived 
lover, as we can trace it from Nietzsche and Schopen- 
hauer down to Buddha Gotama, whose pupil, Ananda, 
asks: ‘* Master, how shall we comport ourselves to- 
ward a woman?” Quoth the master: “ Avoid the 
sight of her, Ananda, because a woman’s being is hidden, 
It is unfathomable as the way of the fish in the water. 
To her, lying is as truth, and truth as lying.” 

“© Sst! What are you doing here? ” said Doctor Wil- 
helm, stepping up softly. He was carrying something 
in his hands carefully wrapped up. 

** Do you know who is lying here?” said Frederick. 
* It is Achleitner.” 

‘“* He wanted to keep his eye on that cabin,” Wilhelm 
remarked cynically, “ to limit the attendance.” 

* We must wake him up.” 

“Why?” said Wilhelm. “ Later, when we go to 
bed.” 

“TIT am going to bed now.” 

** Come to my cabin first for a moment.” 

In his cabin the physician laid a human embryo on 
the table. | 

%< She has attained her end,” he said, meaning the girl. 
travelling second class, who in his opinion had taken the 
trip for no other purpose than to rid herself of her bur- 
den and avoid disgrace. At the sight of the little ob- 
ject, Frederick did not know whether to be born or 
never to awaken to life was preferable. 

He went out on deck again, aroused Achleitner, and 
led him to his cabin, resisting and mumbling incompre- 
hensible words, though half asleep. Then, in dread of 
the agonies of insomnia, he went to his own cabin. 


ATLANTIS 127 


XXXII 


He fell asleep immediately, but when he awoke, it was 
only two o’clock. The ship was still moving easily, 
and he could hear the screw working regularly under the 
water. Life in times of great physical crises is a fever, 
which travelling and sleeplessness enhance. Frederick 
well knew his own nature, and was alarmed when he saw 
himself robbed of the peace of sleep after so short a 
time. 

But had his sleep actually meant peace? Lying on 
his back with wide, staring eyes, he saw vast nocturnal 
spaces of his soul opened up, where in bottomless depths 
another chaotic life had been born —a multitude of 
tormenting visions, in which things and persons most 
familiar had arisen in combination with things and per- 
sons entirely strange. He tried to recall his dreams. 

He had dreamed he was wandering hand in hand with 
Achleitner among the dark smoke widows trailing back- 
ward over the ocean from the funnels of the Roland, 
far, far away. He and the Russian Jewess together 
with great difficulty dragged the dead stoker, Zickel- 
mann, up into the blue ladies’ parlour; and by means 
of a serum, which he himself had discovered, he brought 
him back to life. He smoothed over a quarrel between 
the Russian Jewess and Ingigerd Hahlstrém, who fought 
- and called each other abusive names. He was sitting 
with Doctor Wilhelm in his cabin, and, as Wagner once 
had done, was observing a homunculus still undergoing 
embryonic development in a glass sphere on which light 
was shining. At the same time Ingigerd’s cockatoo was 
squawking in Arthur Stoss’s voice and continually as- 
severating : 

* I am already a man of absolutely independent for- 


128 ATLANTIS 


tune. I am touring simply to bring my fortune up to 
a certain amount.” 

Under the impression that he was recalling these 
things to his memory, Frederick was really dreaming 
again. Suddenly he started up, cuffing Hans Fiillen- 
berg furiously and saying: “Tl box your ears.” 
Shortly afterward he was in the smoking-room deliv- 
ering a crushing sermon for the third or fourth time, 
morally felling to the ground the man who had dese- 
crated his sacred relation to Ingigerd. But the captain 
came in, and said they had to bury the stoker. There 
was a dead man on board. When Frederick stepped 
from the smoking-room, he saw the corpse lying in the 
coffin. It was not Zickelmann, the stoker, but Angéle, 
his suffering, neglected wife, in one of her hysterical 
attacks in which she lay in a trance. And it was not 
at the entrance to the smoking-room, but in Plassenberg 
in the Heuscheuer, in front of his comfortable house. 
Captain von Kessel was standing in the garden clipping 
a privet hedge. It was at night, but a full moon was 
shining bright as day over the lonely valley meadows 
in front of his house. Angéle arose and Frederick went 
to lead her into the house. She resisted. Now the © 
consciousness of his spiritual separation from her filled 
him with infinite sadness, a sadness more bitter and pro- 
found than any that had ever inspired him in his waking 
moments. 

“IT am a mother,” said Angéle, * but not by you.” 

He embraced her, weeping, and wanted to draw her 
into his house. She resisted gently, but firmly, and de- 
clared she was forbidden to enter. He saw her wander- 
ing across the meadows in the moonshine, slowly and 
wearily. 9 

* Angele!’ he cried. He ran after her. 


ATLANTIS 129 


“It is so hard for me,” she said, ‘‘ because life and 
not death has robbed me of you.” | 

Frederick groaned aloud. A great stone seemed to 
be lying on his breast. He heard the rushing of wa- 
ters. He saw the flood come leaping through all the 
valleys, over the tops of all the hills, wave upon wave, 
from all sides. 'The moon was shining. He saw Angéle 
climb to a little skiff lying moored somewhere; and the 
tide carried away the skiff with her in it. ‘The waters 
overwhelmed his house. 

Again the wandering began, hand in hand with Ach- 
leitner and the smoke widows across the ocean desert. 
Again began that difficult dragging up-stairs and down- 
stairs of the naked, dead stoker, with the help of the 
young admirer of Kropotkin. The dispute between 
Ingigerd and Deborah, his sermonising of Fiillenberg and 
the man in the smoking-room repeated themselves, each 
repetition intensifying his torment. ‘The homunculus 
in the glass sphere in Doctor Wilhelm’s cabin appeared 
again. It developed with light thrown on it. In his 
anguish, in his impotence against that martyrising 
chase of visions, Frederick’s persecuted soul, gasping 
for peace, suddenly rose in revolt, and he said aloud: 

“ Kindle the light of reason, kindle the light of reason, 
O God in heaven! ” 

He rose in his berth, and saw that Rosa, the servant- 
girl, was in reality holding a burning candle over him. 
She bent down slightly, and said: 

“You are dreaming hard. Aren’t you feeling well, 
Doctor von Kammacher? ” 

The door creaked. The servant-girl Rosa had left. 
The ship was moving quietly. Or was he mistaken? 
Was the Roland no longer proceeding so calmly and 
steadily as before? He listened intently, and heard 


130 ATLANTIS 


the screw whirring regularly under the water. Monot- 
onous calls penetrated from the deck. Then came the 
loud rattling of the cinders pouring overboard. Fred- 
erick looked at his watch. It was five o’clock. So 
three hours had passed since he had first awakened! 
Again, with a clatter and a thunder, a load of 
ashes slid into the Atlantic Ocean. Was it not the 
mates of the dead stoker, Zickelmann, who were throw- 
ing it overboard? Frederick heard the crying of chil- 
dren, thereupon the sobbing and whimpering of his 
hysterical neighbour, and finally Rosa’s voice, trying 
to quiet Siegfried and Ella, who was a talkative little 
girl. Siegfried was fretfully begging to be taken back 
to his grandmother in Luckenwalde. Mrs. Liebling was 
scolding Rosa, telling her she was responsible for the 
children’s behaviour. Frederick heard her say: 

“You all trample about on my nerves. I wish the 
three of you were at the bottom of the sea. For heaven’s 
sake, let me sleep!” 


XXXITT 


NotwirHstTanpine all these impressions, Frederick fell 
asleep again. He dreamed that he and Rosa, the maid, 
and little Siegfried Liebling were in a life-boat, rocking 
on a calm, shimmering green sea. Strangely enough, 
there was a mass of gold ingots in the bottom of the 
boat, probably the gold ingots that the Roland was 
supposed to be carrying to the mint in Washington. 
Frederick was at the helm, and after cruising about 
a while, they reached a bright, cheery port. It may 
have been a port in the Azores, or the Madeira Islands, 
or the Canary Islands. At a short distance from the 


ATEANTIS : 131 


quay, Rosa jumped overboard and reached land holding 
Siegfried clear of the water. People received them, and 
they disappeared in one of the snowy white buildings 
at the harbour front. When Frederick landed, to his 
joy he was greeted on the marble steps of the quay by 
his old friend, Peter Schmidt, the physician he intended 
to visit in America. In response to curious questions, 
he always said that this was his main purpose in cross- 
ing the ocean. His delight at seeing him in a dream, 
in the setting of the white tropical town, after a separa- 
tion of eight or nine years, was a surprise to himself. 
How was it possible that he had only occasionally and 
superficially remembered so magnificent a man, so dear 
a youthful companion? 

Peter Schmidt was a Friesian. He and Frederick 
had sat together on the same school bench; later, they 
had spent two years together in the gymnasium at St. 
Magdalene at Breslau and several semesters in the uni- 
versities of Greifswald, Breslau, and Ziirich. Owing 
to a combination of common sense, many-sided knowl- 
edge, and humanitarian enthusiasm, Peter Schmidt had 
exerted great influence on his friends. 'There was also 
an adventurous streak in his nature, inherited from his 
father, a Friesian colonist, who lay buried in a church- 
yard in Meriden, Connecticut. 

“Tt is good that you have come,” said Peter Schmidt. 
Frederick felt. as if he had been long expecting him. 
* Your wife, Angéle, just arrived in a skiff.” 

His friend silently led him to an inn near the har- 
bour. A sense of security such as he had never before 
felt came over him. While he took a little luncheon in 
the dining-room, where the host, a German, stood oppo- 
site, twirling his thumbs, Peter Schmidt explained: 2 

“ The town is not large, but it will give you an idea 


132 ATLANTIS 


of the country. You will find people here that are con- 
tented and have made their last landing.” 

It was taken as a matter of course that there, in that 
strange, silent city in the dazzling sunlight, the fewest 
possible words were to be spoken. Some new, mute in- 
ner sense appeared to make meanings clear. Neverthe- 
less, Frederick said: 

**T’ve always taken you for the mentor in unknown 
depths of our predestination.”?> By which he meant to 
express his awe at his friend’s mysterious being. 

** Yes,” said Peter Schmidt, “ but this is only a small 
beginning, though enough to indicate what is hidden un- 
der the surface here.” 

Peter Schmidt, born in Tondern, now led Frederick 
out to the harbour. It was a very small harbour. 
There were a number of ancient vessels lying half-sunk 
in the water. 

** Fourteen-ninety-two,” said Peter Schmidt. That 
was the year the four hundredth anniversary of which 
was being much discussed by the Americans on board the 
Roland. 'The Friesian pointed to both the half-sub- 
merged caravels and explained that one of them was 
the Santa Maria, Christopher Columbus’s flag-ship. 
** I came over with Christopher Columbus,” he said. 

All this was unqualifiedly enlightening to Frederick. 
Nor was there anything enigmatic in Peter Schmidt’s 
explanation that the wood of those slowly decaying 
caravels was called legno santo and was used for fuel, 
because it contained the spirit of knowledge. Farther 
out to sea lay a third vessel, with a great, black breach 
forward on the port side. 

‘It sank,” said the Friesian. ‘“ It brought in a great 
lot of people.” 

Frederick looked at the vessel. He was dissatisfied, 


ATLANTIS 133 


He would have liked to ask questions about the unfa- 
miliar, yet curiously familiar ship out there at sea; 
but the Friesian left the harbour and turned into a 
narrow, crooked street with a steep flight of stairs. 

Here an old uncle of Frederick, who had been dead 
more than fifteen years, came toward him comfortably 
puffing at a pipe. He had just arisen, it seemed, from 
a bench by the open entrance to his house. 

“How do you do?” he said. ‘ We are all here, 
my boy.” Frederick knew whom the old man 
meant when he said, “ We are all here.” ‘“‘ We 
fare very well,’ the old man, who in his lifetime 
had not been exactly favoured by fortune, continued, 
grinning. “I didn’t get along so well when I was up 
with you in the dismal air. In the first place, my boy, 
we have the legno santo.”’ With his pipe he pointed to 
the dark interior of his house, where blue tongues of 
flame were leaping on the hearth. ‘“ And besides, we 
have the Toilers of the Light. But I am detaining you. 
We have time, but you must hurry.” Frederick said 
good-bye. ‘“ Fiddlesticks!’? exclaimed his uncle. ‘ Do 
you people down there still keep up that tiresome busi- 
ness of ‘ how-do-you-do’ and ‘ good-bye’? ” 

Climbing higher up the street, Peter Schmidt led 
Frederick through a number of houses and inside court- 
yards. In one of the courtyards with many corners, re- 
minding Frederick of certain ancient sections of Ham- 
burg and Nuremberg, was a ship-chandlery bearing the 
sign, “ The Seagoing Ship.” 

“‘ Everything here looks quite ordinary,” said Peter 
Schmidt, “but here we have all the ancient models.” 
He pointed to the small model of an ancient vessel stand- 
ing in the little window of the chandlery, among pack- 
ages of chewing tobacco and leather whips. 


134 ATLANTIS 


Ships, ships, nothing but ships! The sight of this 
last vessel seemed to produce the beginning of a slight 
gnawing resistance in Frederick’s brain. He knew he 
was looking upon an all-embracing symbol, which he had 
never before seen. With a new sense organ, with cen- 
tralised clarity of thought, he realised that here, in this 
little model, was comprehended all the wandering and 
adventuring of the human soul. 

“Oh,” said the chandler, opening the glass door of 
the little shop, at. which all sorts of wares hanging on 
the door swung to and fro with a clatter, “‘ Oh, you here, 
Frederick? I thought you were still at sea.” 

Frederick recognised the chandler as George Ras- 
mussen, whose farewell letter he had received in 
Southampton. He was dressed in a shabby cap and 
- dressing-gown belonging to a confectioner long dead, 
whom he had known when a boy. Mysterious as it all 
was, there was yet something natural in this meeting 
with his friend. ‘The little shop was alive with gold- 
finches. ‘‘ They are the goldfinches,” Rasmussen ex- 
plained, “ that settled in the Heuscheuer Mountains last 
winter, you know, and were fatal to me.” 

“Yes, I remember,” said Frederick. ‘‘ We would ap-— 
proach a bare branch or tree, and suddenly it would 
seem to shake itself and scatter thousands of gold leaves. 
We interpreted it as auguring mountains of money.” 

* Well,” said the chandler, “ it was precisely thirteen 
minutes past one on the twenty-fourth of January when 
I drew my last breath. I had just received your telegram 
from Paris absolving me from my debt. Back there in 
the shop, among other things, is my predecessor’s fur 
coat, which—I am by no means complaining — in- 
fected me. I wrote you that if I could, I would make 
myself noticeable from the Beyond. Well, here I am. 


ATLANTIS _ 135 


But even here everything isn’t perfectly clear and plain, 
though I am feeling better, and we all rest in a pleasant 
sense of basic security. I’m glad you and Peter Schmidt 
have met. He counts for a lot here in this country. 
You will meet each other above again, in New York, at 
the celebration of the four hundredth anniversary of 
1492. Good Lord! Of what significance after all, is 
that little discovery of America?’ Rasmussen in his 
strange disguise removed the miniature vessel from the 
show window. It, too, was called the Santa Maria. 
** Now, please be careful,” he said. Frederick noticed 
that the old confectioner took one vessel after another 
of the same sort, but diminishing in size, from the first 
one. “ Patience,” he said, while still pulling more and 
more vessels from the entrails of the Santa Maria. 'The 
procedure caused Frederick no slight astonishment. 
** Patience. ‘The smaller are always the better ones. 
If I had time, we should reach the smallest, the final, the 
most glorious work of Providence. Each one of these 
ships carries us not only beyond the boundaries of our 
planet, but even beyond the limited barriers of our senses. 
Each of them is adapted to carry us across the border. 
If you are interested,” he continued, “ I have other wares 
in my shop. Here are the captain’s hedge-scissors, here 
is a plummet with which one can sound the lowest depths 
of the firmament and the Milky Way. Here are the 
- tropics of Cancer and Capricorn. But you have no 
time, and I won’t detain you.” 

The chandler closed the glass door on them; but they 
saw him with his nose flattened against the pane, mys- 
teriously, as if he still had something to sell, holding his 
finger to his mouth, shaped like a carp’s. His lips 
seemed to be framing certain words. Frederick under- 
stood legno santo, Toilers of the Light, and even what 


136 ATLANTIS 


his uncle had said about “up with you in the dismal 
air.” But Peter Schmidt thrust his fist through the 
glass door, pulled Rasmussen’s embroidered cap off his 
head, took from it a little key, and beckoned Frederick 
to come away with him. They left the houses behind 
and stepped out into the open rolling country. 

“The thing is,” said Peter, “it will mean a lot of 
trouble.” 

And they ran and climbed for hours. Evening fell. 
They lit a fire, and slept in a tree rocking in the wind. 
Morning came. They took to wandering again, until 
the sun lay low on the horizon. Finally, Peter opened 
a small gate in a low wall. On the other side of the 
wall was a garden. <A gardener was tying vines. ~ 

** Flow do you do, Doctor? ” he said. ‘* The sun is 
setting, but we know why we die.” 

On looking at him more closely, Frederick recognised 
the dead stoker in the man, whose face was illuminated 
by the rosy flush of the setting sun and wore a friendly 
smile, as he stood there in what was a strange garden, © 
or vineyard, or fairy-land. 

** I'd rather be doing this than shovelling coal,” said 
the stoker, pointing to the cords hanging in his hands, © 
with which he had been tying up the vines. 

The three of them together now walked a rather long 
distance to a wild section of the garden, where it had 
turned completely dark. ‘The wind began to rush, and 
the shrubs, trees and bushes of the garden swished like 
breakers on the shore. The stoker beckoned to them, 
and they squatted on the ground in a circle. It seemed 
as if the stoker with his bare hand had taken a bit of 
burning wood from his pocket. He held it close to the 
ground, to illuminate a round opening, something like 
the burrow of a marmot or a rabbit. 


ATLANTIS ) 187 


** Legno santo,” said Peter Schmidt, pointing to the 
glowing piece of charcoal. ‘* Now, Frederick, you will 
get to see those ant-like little elves that are called 
noctiluct or night-lights. They pompously call them- 
selves Toilers of the Light. But whatever their name, 
it must be admitted that they are the ones that take the 
light hidden in the entrails of the earth, store it up, and 
sow it in fields, the soil of which has been especially pre- 
pared; and when it has grown to its full size and has 
borne fruit a hundredfold in the shape of gold sheaves 
or nuggets, they harvest it and save it for the darkest of 
dark times.” 

And, actually, looking through a crevice, Frederick 
saw something like another world, with a subterranean 
sun shining on it. A multitude of little elves, the 
Toilers of the Light, were mowing with scythes, cutting 
stalks, binding sheaves, loading carts, and storing in 
barns. Many cut the light out of the ground, like nug- 
gets of gold. Undoubtedly it was the gold meant for 
the mint in Washington that was haunting Frederick’s 
dreams. 

“These Toilers of the Light,” said the Friesian, 
Peter Schmidt, “ are the most stimulating to my ideas.” 

At this point Frederick awoke, while the voice of the 
stoker close beside him was saying: 

** Many will soon be following me.” P 


A 


XXXIV 


Tue first thing Frederick did on waking was to look 
at his watch. He had a dull feeling that he must have 
slept through the whole night and even the following 
day. He peered at the hands incredulously and heid 


138 ATLANTIS 


the watch to his ear to convince himself it had not 
stopped. No, it was still running. Consequently, 
since his last waking, only six or, at the utmost, eight 
minutes had passed. 

This fact as well as the peculiarity and the vividness 
of his dream set him to marvelling. He could not re- 
call ever having dreamed so coherently and logically. 
Are there dreams that are more than dreams? Was 
Rasmussen dead? Had his friend, keeping his promise, 
chosen this way to make himself noticeable from the 
Beyond? A strange shudder went through Frederick. 
In his excitement it seemed to him that he had been hon- 
oured with a revelation. He took his memorandum book 
from the net bag over his berth and jotted down the 
date and hour that the remarkable chandler had men- 
tioned as the time of his death. ‘* Thirteen minutes 
past one,” he distinctly heard Rasmussen’s voice saying, 
‘thirteen minutes past one, on the twenty-fourth of 
January.” 

The Roland was tossing slightly again, and the great 
siren was bellowing. Its repeated thunderous cries, 
which indicated fog, the lurching of the vessel, the sign, 
perhaps, of fresh storms and hardships to be gone 
through, vexed and fretted Frederick. From the ad- 
venturous doings in his brain, he was transported to 
the no less adventurous doings in reality. Awakening 
from his dreams, he found himself locked into a narrow 
cabin, plowing through the high seas, on a vessel heavily 
freighted with the fearful dreams of many souls, and 
yet not sinking from the load of that cargo. 

Frederick was already on deck before half past five. 
The fog had lifted, and from over the edge of a leaden 
sea of moderate-sized waves rose the dawn of a gloomy 
morning. ‘The deck was empty, producing the impres- 


ATLANTIS 139 


sion of dreary loneliness. The passengers were all ly- 
ing in their berths. None of the crew even were visible. 
It looked as if the mighty ship were pursuing its course 
wholly without human agency. 


XXXV 


Freperick was standing near the log-line, which 
dragged in the broad, churning wake. Even in the 
ghostly dawn, hungry gulls were following the ship, 
sometimes flying near, sometimes dropping back, ever 
and anon swooping down into the foamy wake with a 
mournful cry, as of condemned souls. ‘This was no 
vision, and yet Frederick scarcely distinguished it from 
a dream. With his nerves unstrung, with his being 
still penetrated by the marvels of his sleeping life, which 
remained partially present to him, the strange heaving 
waste of the ocean seemed no less miraculous than his 
dreams. Thus the ocean had been tossing its mountains 
of waves beneath the blind eyes of millions of years, 
itself no less blind than those eons. Thus and not other- 
wise had it been since the first day of creation: “In 
the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness 
was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God 
moved upon the face of the waters.” 

Frederick shivered. Had he ever lived with any- 
thing else than a spirit and spirits, that is, with ghosts? 
And at this moment was he not farther removed than 
ever from what is considered immovable solid ground, 
from what is called reality? In his state of mind, did 
he not believe in fairy tales, sailors’ superstitions, the 


Flying Dutchman, and hobgoblins? What was that 


140 ATLANTIS 


ocean hiding in its infinite waves rolling under the low, 
grey sky? Had not everything arisen from the ocean? 
Had not everything gone down into its depths again? 
Had some power disclosed the submerged Atlantis to 
Frederick’s mental vision? Why not? 

He was passing through profound, enigmatic mo- 
ments of a fearful yet pleasurable dread. ‘There was 
the ocean, on which an apparently abandoned vessel, a 
small spot in infinity, was staggering forward with no 
visible goal ahead and no visible starting-point behind. 
There were the heavens lying heavily upon it, grey and 
dismal, There was Frederick himself, alone. Every 
animate creature in that solitude was transformed in his 
soul into visions, phantoms and apparitions. Man is 
always facing the unfathomable alone. That gives him 
a sense of greatness along with a sense of desertion. 
There was a man standing at the stern of a vessel, while 
the darkness of night was yielding to the dawn, bound 
by the invisible, glowing threads of his fate to two con- 
tinents of the globe, and awaiting the new, less torment- 
ing form of life that comes from the sun, a strange star 
millions of miles removed from the planet earth. All 
this was a miracle to Frederick, almost overwhelming 
him, as if he were imprisoned in marvels. In a sudden 
seizure of hopelessness that he would ever throw off the 
suffocating oppression of riddles and miracles, the 
temptation came upon him to leap over the railing. 
Close upon this feeling followed the timidity of a man 
with a bad conscience. He glanced about, as if in fear 
of discovery. He wiped his eyes and forehead with his 
hands, because it seemed to him that the dead stoker 
with the bloody wound had for a long time been sitting 
nearby on a coil of rope. His chest felt heavy, as if a 
load were dragging it down. He heard voices. He saw 


ATLANTIS 141 


his wife, Angéle, wringing her hands. Suddenly he 
thought he was to blame for her illness, that he was a 
criminal; and all his thoughts of Ingigerd Hahlstrém 
made him doubly despicable in his own eyes. His ideas 
grew confused. In a wave of absolute credulity, he 
thought the voice of his conscience was condemning him 
to death. He thought that his life was being demanded 
as an atonement, that he must sacrifice himself, or else 
the Roland, with all it carried, would sink. 

At that moment Frederick heard a strong voice say- 
ing: 

“ Good morning, Doctor von Kammacher.” 

It was the first mate, Von Halm, on his way to the 
bridge. Before the healthy beauty of the human voice, 
the haunting visions instantly fled, and Frederick’s soul 
was restored to sanity. 

“ Were you making deep-sea researches? ” Von Halm 
asked. 

“ Yes,” said Frederick with a laugh, “ I was about to 
make a sounding for the submerged Atlantis. What 
do you think of the weather? ” 

The giant was wearing his sou’wester Tet oilskin. 
He pointed to the barometer. Frederick saw it had 
dropped considerably. Adolph, the steward, came in 
search of Frederick. Having failed to find him in his 
cabin, he was bringing him his zwieback and large 
peasant cup of tea on deck. Frederick seated himself 
on the same bench as the day before, opposite the com- 
panionway. He sipped the cordial drink and warmed 
his hands on the cup. 

Before he had finished, the wind was again beginning 
to boom in the rigging of the four masts, and a stiff, 
obstinate wind was heeling the vessel to starboard. 
Frederick set to bargaining inwardly, as if he had to 


142 ATLANTIS 


a 


reckon with the powers on account of the new hardships 
to be gone through. » He suddenly longed to be with 
Peter Schmidt in America. Since his dream, it seemed 
more and more important for him to see, and associate 
with, his old comrade again. He thought he was rid of 
Ingigerd, the more surely as she had played no part at » 
all in the momentous Atlantis dream. 'The sooner the 
voyage with her ended the better. 


XXXVI 


By the time Frederick was taking his real breakfast 
with Doctor Wilhelm in the dining-room, at about eight 
o’clock, the whole mass of, the vessel was again quiver- 
ing and at short intervals again seemed to be running 
hard against walls of rock. The low-ceiled room in dis- 
mal gloom, dotted here and there by electric lights, was 
leaping in a mad dance, one moment riding high on the 
crest of a wave, the next moment plunging deep into an 
eddying trough. The few men that had ventured to 
table tried to laugh and joke away the situation, which 
by no means offered a rosy outlook. 

“In the pit of my stomach I have the feeling I used 
to get as a child when I swung too high.” 

*“ Kammacher, we’re in the devil’s cauldron. 
There’ll be things doing compared with which the 
things we’ve gone through aren’t a circumstance,” said 
Wilhelm. : 

From somewhere came the word, “ Cyclone,” a Apeait: 
ful word, though it seemed to make no impression 
upon the steamer Roland, a model of determination, 
steadfastly cleaving the waves and tearing breaches in 
the mountains of water. New York was its goal, and 
it was hastening onward. 


-ATLANTIS 143 


Frederick wanted to go on deck, but it looked bad 
there, and he remained on the uppér step under the pro- 
tection of the companionway penthouse. The level of 
the sea seemed to have risen, so that the warrior Roland 
appeared to be making his obstinate way through a 
deep defile. One could not help succumbing to the 
impression that each instant the defile would close over- 
head and settle the faithful vessel’s fate forever. Sail- 
ors in oilskins were climbing about to make fast every 
loose thing. Great waves had already swept overboard. 
The salt water was trickling and flowing over the deck. 
As if that were not enough, the heavens were driving 
down rain and snow. The rigging was howling, groan- 
ing, booming, and whistling in every pitch and key. 
That severity, that awfulness of the elements, that 
eternal rushing and roaring and seething of great masses 
of water, through which the steamer was staggering for- 
ward as if in mad, blind intoxication, that mournful, 
raging tumult kept up hour after hour. By noon it 
had even grown worse. 

Very few responded to the trumpet-call for luncheon. 
There were about ten men beside the woman physician 
and the woman painter. Hahlstrém seated himself at 
Frederick’s and Wilhelm’s empty table. The ladies’ 
places were not far away. 

** No wonder,” said Frederick, * that sailors are su- 
perstitious. The way this awful weather dropped out 
of a clear sky is enough to make a man believe in 
magic.” 

“It may even grow worse,” Wilhelm observed. 

The women heard his remark, looked up, and made 
horrified eyes. 

** Do you think there is danger? ” one of them asked. 

“ Danger is always imminent in life,” he replied, and 


144 ATLANTIS 


added with a smile: “ It is merely a question of not be- 
ing frightened.” 

Incredible to relate, the band began to play as usual, 
and, what is more, played a piece entitled Marche triom- 
phale. 'The effect on all was at first a slight shudder; 
then nobody could resist a smile at the apparent irony 
of it. 

“'The musicians are heroes,” said Frederick. 

* In general,” remarked Hahlstrém, “ our grim hu- 
mour nowadays is a great asset. If those musicians 
were to receive the order, they would play ‘ A Country 
Girl,’ and ‘ My Hannah Lady,’ in the jaws or the belly 
of a whale. If they didn’t, they’d fare just as badly.” 

**O Lord, anything for a steady table, a steady seat, 
a steady berth! The man possessing these things sel- 
dom knows how rich he is,” said Frederick, in a voice 
raised to a shout to make himself heard above the noise 
of the sea without and the music within. The men 
laughed, and the ocean, to add to their amusement, 
raised them up in the fog, the tempest, and the snow to 
the top of a wave ninety feet high. Everybody was in- 
stantly silenced. Even the orchestra played a fright- 
ened pause not indicated in the score. 

On ascending the companionway after lunch, Fred- 
erick saw Arthur Stoss in the unfrequented smoking- 
room eating his meal in perfect equanimity and cheer- 
fulness undisturbed by the weather. Frederick went in 
for a chat with the original, witty monstrosity. He 
was cutting his fish with a knife and fork held between 
the great toe and the second toe. ¥ 

“Our old omnibus is jolting a bit,” he said, “If 
our boilers are good, there is nothing to fear. But 
there’s this much about it. If it is not a cyclone yet, 
it may still turn into one. I don’t care. It looks more 


ATLANTIS : 145 


discouraging than it really is. What a man will do! 
To show the people in Cape Town, Melbourne, Buenos 
Aires, San Francisco and Mexico what a man with a 
firm, energetic will can accomplish, even if nature has 
not favoured him, he will plow through all the cyclones, 
hurricanes and typhoons of all the waters of the globe. 
Your business man sitting in the Winter Garden in 
Berlin, or the Alhambra in London, never dreams of all 
the things the performer giving his number must go 
through before he can merely stand where he is stand- 
ing. He can’t ever take it easy and let himself get 
rusty.” 

Frederick was feeling miserable. Although his 
dreams were still haunting his brain, and Ingigerd, or 
his sick wife, or the Russian Jewess was still present in 
his soul, he nevertheless felt that all sensations were be- 
coming more and more submerged in the one sensation, 
that on all sides there was distinct menace of a brutal 
danger. 

Hans Fiillenberg entered. His face was lifeless. 

“There is a corpse on board,” he said, in a tone 
implying a causal relation between the dead stoker and 
the raging storm. It was very evident that the spice 
had been taken out of Hans Fiillenberg’s life. 

“IT heard the same thing,” Stoss said. “ My man, 
~ Bulke, told me a stoker died.” 

Frederick simulated ignorance of the event. Accus- 
tomed to observe himself honestly, he realized that 
though the fact was not new to him, Fiillenberg’s state- 
ment of it had made him shudder. 

“The dead man is dead,” said Stoss, now attacking 
his roast with appetite. ‘ We won’t be wrecked on the 
dead stoker’s corpse. But last night a derelict was 
sighted. Those corpses, the corpses of vessels, are 


146 ATLANTIS 


dangerous. When the sea is rough, they can’t be 
sighted.” 

Frederick asked for more information about dere- 
licts. 

** About nine hundred and seventy-five drifting dere- 
licts,” Stoss explained, “‘ have been sighted in five years 
here in the northern part of the Atlantic. It is cer- 
tain that the actual number is twice as great. One of 
the most dangerous of such tramps is the iron four- 
masted schooner, Houresfeld. On its way from Liver- 
pool to San Francisco, fire broke out in its hold, and 
the crew abandoned it. If we were to collide with any- 
thing of that sort, there wouldn’t be a soul left to tell 
the tale.” 

** You can’t pass through the gangways,” said Fiil- 
lenberg, “ the bulkheads are closed down.” 

The siren began to roar again. Frederick still heard 
defiance and triumph in the ery, and yet something re- 
calling the broken horn of the hero Roland in Ronces- 
valles. 

“ There is no danger yet,” said Stoss to calm him. 


XXXVII 


Lone after Stoss had been led away by his valet and 
tucked in bed for his afternoon nap, Frederick still re- 
mained in the unfrequented smoking-room. ‘The place 
made an uncanny impression. Yet its very gloominess 
insured privacy; and in the gravity of the situation he 
had need to be by himself. He began, perhaps pre- 
maturely, to consider the worst eventuality. He 
thought it might be well to stand in readiness. Around 
the walls ran a bench upholstered in leather. Kneeling 


ATLANTIS | _ 147 


on it, he could look through the port-holes out upon the 
mighty uproar of the waters. In that position, watch- 
ing the waves beat with inconceivable persistency against 
the desperately struggling vessel, he let his life pass in 
review before his mind’s eye. 

Grey gloom was closing down on him. After all, he 
felt that he yearned for life and was far from being as 
ready to die as he had occasionally supposed. Some- 
thing akin to regret came over him. “ Why am I 
here? Why did I not stop to consider and summon all 
my rational will power to keep me from this senseless 
trip? For all I care, let me die; but not here, not in a 
desert of water far from mother earth, immeasurably 
far from the great community of men. This seems to 
me a particularly awful curse. Men on solid land, in 
their own homes, men among men, have not the least 
notion of it.” What was Ingigerd to him now? A 
matter of indifference. Shaking his head, he admitted 
that he now had only the narrowest concern for him- 
self. What a beautiful hope to escape that brutal fate 
and land on some shore! Any fragment of land, any 
island, any city, any snow-clad village was a garden of 
Eden, an improbable dream of happiness. How ex- 
travagantly grateful he would be in the future merely to 
tread dry land, merely to draw breath, merely to see a 
lively street! He gnashed his teeth. Of what avail 
a cry for help here? How could a man find God’s ear 
here? If the extreme thing were to happen, and the 
Roland with its mass of human beings were to founder, 
one would see things that would prevent the man that 
had seen them, even if he escaped, from ever’ being 
happy again. 

“I would not witness it,” thought Frederick. ‘I 
would jump overboard to avoid the sight of it. And 


148 ATLANTIS 


while that would be happening, none of my friends 
and relatives would be thinking of me at all. ‘The 
steamship Roland sunk’ appears as a head-line in the 
newspapers. ‘Oh!’ says the reader in Berlin, the 
reader in Hamburg, and Amsterdam. He takes a sip 
of coffee, puffs at his cigar, and comfortably settles 
back to a taste of more details of the catastrophe, 
whether observed or fabricated. What a hurrah for 
the newspaper publishers! A sensation! More read- 
ers! That is the Medusa into whose eyes we look, and 
who tells us what the genuine value of a cargo of human 
lives is in the world.” : 
Frederick attempted in vain to battle against a still- 
life picture, which the Roland, valiantly struggling on- 
ward, with its siren almost stifled in the storm, showed 
him at the bottom of the sea. He saw the majestic 
vessel in a coffin of glass. Across its decks swarms of 
fish swam hither and thither. Its cabins were all filled 
with water. The large dining-room, with its panels of 
walnut, its tables, and leather-upholstered revolving 
chairs, was filled with water. <A big polyp, jelly-fish, 
and red, mushroom-like sea-anemones had penetrated 
into the very gangways along which the passengers 
were now walking. And to Frederick’s horror, the 
liveried corpses of Pfundner, the head-steward, and his 
assistant stewards were slowly floating about in a circle. 
The picture would have been almost ridiculous, had it 
not been so gruesome and had it not so certainly lain 
in the realm of the possible. Think of all the things 
divers report! All the things they have seen in the 
cabins and gangways of submerged steamers; inextric- 
ably knotted masses of human beings, passengers or 
sailors coming toward them with outstretched arms, 
upright, as if alive and as if awaiting them. A closer 


ATLANTIS 149 


examination of the clothes of those guardians and ad- 
ministrators of a lost estate at the bottom of the sea, 
those strange ship-owners, business men, captains, 
pursers, those fortune-seekers, money-seekers, embez- 
zlers, adventurers, or whatever they might be, showed 
that they were filled with polyps, crustaceans, and all 
sorts of ocean worms, enjoying their stay there as long 
as something remained beneath their shredded garments 
except gnawed-off bones. 

Frederick beheld himself down there, too, one of those 
decaying phantoms, months old, wandering about in the 
ghastly abode of the sunken Roland, in that horrible 
Vineta, where each man passed his neighbour mutely 
with a frightened gesture, each seeming to carry in his 
breast a congealed cry of anguish, which he expressed 
with bowed head and outstretched arms, or head thrown 
back and open mouth. Or else he was hideously crawl- 
ing on his hands, or wringing his hands, or folding 
them, or spreading out his fingers. ‘The engineers in 
the boiler-room seemed still slowly, slowly to be con- 
trolling the cylinder and driving-wheel; yet differently 
than before, since the law of gravity seemed no longer 
to be in force. One of the engineers was doing his 
work in a peculiarly twisted way, like a man asleep 
caught between the rim of the wheel and the piston-rod 
covered with verdigris. Frederick descended on his 
ghastly tour down to the stokers, whom the catastrophe 
had surprised in the midst of their occupation. Some 
were still holding their shovels in their hands, though 
unable to lift them. They themselves were floating, 
while the shovels to which they clung did not stir from 
the bottom. All was over. They could not kindle the 
fire into a white glow, and so could not keep the mighty 
steamer in its course. In the steerage the sight was so 


‘150 : ATLANTIS 


horrible to behold, with men, women and children of all 
nationalities huddled and tossed in thick, dark heaps, 
that even a cat-shark, which had made its way through 
the chimney of the stoke-hole and then through the 
engine, did not feel sufficiently courageous or hungry to 
mingle in the gathering. Noli turbare circulos meos, 
these people, too, seemed to be saying. All were think- 
ing strenuously, absorbed in the profoundest medita- 
tion — they had plenty of time for profound medi- 
tation — upon the riddle of life. 

In fact, they seemed to be placed there merely for the 
purpose of reflecting. Those men and women wring- 
ing their hands or spreading their fingers, or walking 
on their hands, or even standing on the tip of a single 
finger, while grazing the ceiling with their feet, were 
all thinking. Professor Toussaint alone, who came 
floating toward Frederick in the gangway, seemed to be 
acting differently. With his right hand raised, he 
seemed to be saying: “An artist may not rust. He 
must air himself. He must seek new conditions of life. 
If he doesn’t receive the honour he should in Italy, he 
should simply go to France, like Leonardo da Vinci, or 
even emigrate to the land of liberty.” 

“I want to live, live, nothing else,” thought Freder- 
ick. “In the future, like Cato the Elder, I would 
rather walk a year on foot along a way that I could 
cover in three days on a steamer.” / 

To avoid the hideous companionship of the blue, 
swollen thinkers, he left the gloomy, funereal smoking- 
room, and, with aching head and leaden limbs, dragged 
himself on deck, where the wild scurrying of the storm 
and the chaos of snow, rain and salty clouds of foam 
tore the weight away from his soul. 


ATLANTIS 151 


XXXVIII 


In the space at the head of the companionway Freder- 
ick came upon the same company as the day before, 
sitting close together in steamer chairs — Toussaint, 
the timid skipper of the sailing vessel, the woman artist, 
the woman physician, the tall electrical engineer, and a 
man who had not been there the day before, an Amer- 
ican colonel. He was a handsome specimen of the 
highest type of his widely spread species. He was en- 
gaged in a conversation on the number of miles covered 
by all the railroads in the United States, and his state- 
ments concerning their extent set fire to the European 
chauvinism of the electrical engineer. They forgot the 
weather in their debate. Each party to the dispute 
named an incredible number of miles and vaunted the 
advantages of the railroads in his native country. 

“We are running at only half speed,” said Tous- 
saint. to Frederick. ‘“ Isn’t it strange how suddenly the 
weather changed? ” 

“* Very,” answered Frederick. 

“Of course,” Toussaint continued with a pale 
grimace intended for a smile, “ I don’t understand any- 
thing about cyclones, but the seamen say this storm is 
cyclonic.” 

“It may be called a cyclone,’ said the timid little 
skipper of the sailing vessel. “If it were striking us 
astern instead of ahead, it would not be so bad. As it 
is, the Roland at the utmost cannot make more than 
three miles an hour. Were I on my schooner and had 
the same storm blown up so suddenly, we should not 
have had time to furl a sail. We should have been lost. 
Thank the Lord, it is better on modern steamers. 


> 


152 ATLANTIS 


Nevertheless, I feel more comfortable on my four-master, 
and the devil knows, I’d like to be on it now.” 

Frederick could not help laughing. 

** As for the Roland,” he said, “I would rather be, 
let us say, in the Hofbriuhaus in Munich. Your four- 
master has no greater charms for me than a cabin on 
the Roland.” 

Hans Fiillenberg came lounging in and told them a 
wave had swept away one of the life-boats on the after 
quarter. At the very same instant an arched mass of 
water came flying slantwise over the port bow. 

“Oh!” everybody cried. 

** Magnificent, beautiful,” said Frederick. 

“ That’s cyclonic,” the woman artist repeated. 

“ Believe me,” they heard the colonel say again, “ the 
stretch from New York to Chicago alone ”— 

“That was a Niagara Falls,” said Toussaint. 

The wave, dropping into the ventilators and chim- 
neys, had fairly bathed the vessel. It was cold, too, 
and the Roland was continuing its obstinate, praise- 
worthy trip under a crust of ice and snow. Icicles were 
hanging from the rigging. Glassy stalactites formed 
about the chart-room and everywhere on the railings 
and edges of things. The deck was slippery, and it 
was a perilous venture to attempt to make one’s way for- 
ward. But when Ingigerd’s cabin door opened and her 
long light hair rumpled by the wind appeared in the 
slit, Frederick instantly made the venture. She drew 
him into her cabin, where he found two children keeping 
her company. 

“TI invited them to stay with me because it’s fairly 
comfortable in this cabin.” 

The seriousness of the situation had extinguished in 
the girl all coquetry and capriciousness. Frederick 


ATLANTIS 158 


almost forgot what he had suffered on her account. and 
in what fatal dependence he had been upon this creature 
only a short time before. 

** Tell me, is there danger, Doctor von Kammacher? ” 
she asked. 

His evasive answer seemed to make no impression 
upon her. He was astonished to see how energetic and 
resolute she was, in contrast with her behaviour of yes- 
terday, when she played the spoiled, suffering, helpless 
child. She begged him to go try to find her father. 

“In case anything happens, you know, it would be 
well not to be so far away from him.” 

** What do you suppose will happen? ” 

Without answering this, she asked him to stop at 
cabin 49 on the way and tell Rosa to come up. 

** My little guests keep clamouring for her. If she 
doesn’t come up for a while, I can’t keep them quiet. 
Then she can serenely go back again to her silly, senti- 
mental mistress. What do you think of a man like 
Achleitner? ” she continued. “ He is lying on all fours 
in his cabin, crying and groaning, ‘ Oh, my poor mother! 
Oh, my poor sister! Why didn’t I obey you, mamma!’ 
and so on. Just fancy, a man! Poor fellow!” she 
added, her tone changing. ‘It’s enough to move a 
heart of stone.” She held fast to the bedstead, not to 
be thrown into a corner like a splinter, and shook with 
laughter. 

The mountain of stones under which Frederick had 
buried the little sinner, Ingigerd, was at that moment 
removed, and love stood there with unparalleled might. 
Such genuine bravery and genuine humour, combined 
with so much tenderness, he had never credited her with. 
Nervous and tired as he was, he felt irresistibly drawn 
to her, felt his will slipping from him. But a little, and 


154 ATLANTIS 


he would have thrown himself to the floor and kissed 
the small feet in slippers. 

Frederick’s amazement waxed when all of a sudden 
she wanted to cross the deck and go below to comfort 
that donkey Achleitner. Frederick would not allow her. 
He was ashamed of his previous attack of fright, called 
himself a miserable coward, and got himself under per- 
fect control. In this attitude he played the réle of a 
severe mentor, Ingigerd’s responsible guardian and pro- 
tector, strict, but fatherly and good-natured. Though 
she laughed at him, it by no means displeased her to let 
him have his way. 


XXXIX 


Frepericx’s kindliness to Ingigerd’s little wards made 
it unnecessary to summon Rosa. He asked the children 
their names, and they were soon chattering confidingly 
with their new uncle. Ella Liebling, a girl of five, to 
whom Ingigerd had given her doll, was sitting at one 
end of the couch, a cover wrapped about her legs, while 
Siegfried had established himself comfortably on the 
bed. With a spiritless expression for a child, he was 
playing a rather monotonous game of cards with an 
imaginary partner. 

** Mamma is divorced,” Ella explained. ‘ Papa was 
always quarrelling with her.” 

“Yes,” said Siegfried, pushing his cards aside, as if 
waking up from a trance, and bending over to Frederick, 
who was sitting beside Ella, “‘mamma once threw a 
boot at papa.” 

“ But papa is strong,” said Ella. ‘‘ He once picked 
up a chair and knocked it down and smashed it to 
pieces.” 


ATLANTIS 155 


Though Ingigerd was suffering from-nausea, she had 
to laugh. 

** Those children are great sport,” she said. 

** Papa once threw a bottle against the wall,” Sieg- 
fried went on, “ because Uncle Bolle was always coming 
to see us.”” 

And so the children continued, like little wiseacres, to 
discuss in detail the theme of * happy marriages.” 

*“ Rosa says mamma is to blame because papa left 
us,” observed Siegfried. 

*T think so, too,” said Ella. ‘* I think mamma’s to 
blame.” es 

“Rosa said mamma doesn’t do anything but read 
novels,” _ 

** Rosa says,” Ella chimed in, “ that if mamma were 
not always lying in bed, she would feel much better.” 

And “ Rosa says,” “ Rosa says,” went on for a long 
while. ‘The former non-commissioned officer and lackey 
of the vaudeville star, Bulke, came towing Rosa across 
the deck in the same way as he did his master. Both 
looked red and contented. Frederick asked what the 
prospects were for the Roland. 

** Oh, everything’s all right,” Bulke laughed, “ if only 
something else doesn’t turn up.” 

“ Bulke,” said Rosa, “ take Siegfried on your back.” 

Bulke proceeded to do so, while Rosa lifted Ella to 
her crimson arm. 

Now the children begged to remain where they were, 
although before they had been annoying Ingigerd by 
constantly crying for Rosa. 

** Let them stay,” said Ingigerd. 

Rosa thanked her. ‘ They are really best off here,” 
she said. ‘ All they take for supper is some milk and 
a roll. I will bring it right away.” 


156 ATLANTIS 


** What is that on your arm?” asked Frederick. It 
looked as if a beast had been clawing at her. 

“Oh, nothing,” she said. ‘‘ My mistress doesn’t 
know what she is doing. She’s out of her senses from 
seasickness and fright.” 


XL 
For five hours the cyclone raged unmercifully. At ever 
shorter intervals, gust on gust in increasing fury hurled 
itself against the vessel. 

With great difficulty Frederick made his way down 
to the barber, who, though the ship’s movement was a 
fearful combination of rolling and pitching, actually 
performed the miracle of shaving him. 

* One has to keep going,” said the barber. “ If you 
don’t work, you’re lost.” 

He spoke and suddenly stopped, removed the razor 
from Frederick’s throat and turned pale, if his dirty 
grey colour could turn a shade lighter. Frederick’s 
face, too, still partly covered with lather, showed signs 
of surprise and alarm. In the engine-room the signal 
bell had rung loud, as a sign that the captain was send- 
ing an order down from the bridge through the speak- 
ing-tube. ‘Thereupon the revolution of the engines had 
slowed down and within a few moments had ceased en- 
tirely. This event, simple enough in itself, had in this 
weather, about fifteen hundred miles from land, in the 
middle of the Atlantic Ocean, the effect of a catastro- 
phe, not only on Frederick and the barber, but on every 
passenger still capable of reasoning, and even on the 
whole crew. One instantly observed the excitement that 
seized upon all at the cessation of the engines, which 


a 


ATLANTIS | 157 


seemed to turn the vessel into a torpid, powerless thing. 
Voices cried, women shrieked, steps hurried up and 
down the gangways. A man tore the door open and 
indignantly cried, as if imputing to the poor barber the 
responsibility of a captain: 

“Why are we standing still?” 

Frederick wiped the lather from his face and, along 
with a multitude of questioning, groping, staggering 
persons, thrown now against one wall of the gangway, 
now against the other, hastened to make his way on 
deck. 

“We are drifting,” everybody said. 

“The screw is broken.” 

* Cyclone! ” 

“Oh,” said a young girl, who had dragged herself 
up in a dressing-gown, to Frederick, “I don’t care 
about myself, not a bit, but my poor mother, my poor 
mother in Stuttgart.” 

“* What’s the matter? What’s the matter? ” twenty 
voices at the same time demanded of a steward, who 
was attending to his duties. He ran away, shrugging 
his shoulders. 

Since the passengers, huddled like sheep, blocked the 
way to the deck at the head of the companionway, 
Frederick tried to get out by another way, leading a 
long distance through the after part of the vessel and 
then through a narrow corridor forward again. He 
walked rapidly and seemed outwardly composed, 
though in a state of unusual tensity, even fear. 

In the second cabin Frederick’s way was barred by 
a good-looking young man standing in front of his 
cabin barefoot, in his shirt sleeves and trousers. He 
was attempting to button his collar; but in his excite- 
ment was not succeeding. 


158 ATLANTIS 


“'What’s the matter?” he shouted to Frederick. 
“Is everybody in this cursed hole crazy? The first 
thing you know a stoker dies, and now there is a leak, 
or the screw is broken. What’s the matter with the 
captain? I am an officer. I must be in San Fran- 
cisco on the twenty-fifth of February, without fail. If 
it keeps on this way, I’ll be in a fix.” 

Frederick wanted to hurry by, but the man got in his 
way. 

**T am an officer,” he said. ‘ My name is Von Klink- 
hammer.” ‘Frederick also gave his name. “ That’s 
what comes of having priests on board,” the young man 
continued, twirling the end of his moustache upward, 
Prussian fashion. “If there’s no help for it, then the 
fellows ought simply to be chucked overboard. What 
is the captain thinking of? ” he kept shouting, while an 
unexpected lurch of the vessel sent him plunging against 
the wall almost back into his cabin. ‘I didn’t leave the 
service and give up a career and board this damned —” 

But Frederick had run away. Now deep, intense 
silence prevailed throughout the vessel, which was like 
a dead thing; a silence, in which every now and then a 
step or a hasty tread on the heavy carpet in the gang- 
way was audible. Through the thin walls came the 
dull, confused murmur of many voices. Doors banged, 
and when they opened, brief, broken sounds penetrated 
from the cabins, evidence of the bewilderment and 
alarm of their tenants. The thing that was particu- 
larly weird to Frederick in that swaying corridor, 
creaking like a new boot and lighted by electricity, was 
the incessant ringing of electric bells. In a hundred 
cabins at the same time, frightened persons, who had 
paid dear for their passage and were entitled to excel- 
lent service, were pressing the buttons. None of them 


ATLANTIS 159 


was inclined to recognise the force majeure of the At- 
lantic Ocean, the cyclone, the breaking of the screw, or 
any other possible accident. They thought that by 
ringing the bells they would be giving expression to the | 
irresistible demand for a responsible rescuer to bring 
them safely to dry land. 

“Who knows,” thought Frederick, “ while they are 
ringing the bells down here, perhaps the life-belts are 
being handed out on deck, the boats are being swung 
out on the water and overloaded with passengers to the 
sinking point.” 


XLI 


Burt, thank the Lord, by the time he had finally fought 
his way to Ingigerd’s cabin on deck, it had not yet 
reached that point. It was to Ingigerd Hahlstrém that 
an impulse had been driving him. Beside the children, 
for whom in a motherly way she was trying constantly 
to devise a new occupation, he found her father and 
Doctor Wilhelm. 

“People’s cowardice is something fearful,” said 
Doctor Wilhelm. | 

** Easily said; but what’s the matter? ” asked Fred- 
erick. 

** One of the bearings got too hot. It takes time for 
it to cool off.” 

The passengers crowded on the companionway kept 
calling for the captain. 

‘The captain has other things to do than answer 
silly questions,” said Wilhelm. 

*‘T think the people should be quieted and given an 
explanation,” Frederick declared. “To me a certain 
amount of fear seems justifiable in the landlubber, who 


160 ATLANTIS 


doesn’t know anything of nautical matters and hasn’t 
the least notion of what is happening.” 

*“Why should they be told anything?” rejoined 
Wilhelm. “ Even if matters are very bad, it is ad- 
visable to deceive them.” 

** Well, then,” said Hahlstrém, ** deceive them. Send 
stewards around to tell them everything is all right and 
we'll have to drown.” 

Shortly afterward, the captain actually did send the 
little army of stewards through the vessel to inform the 
passengers that, as Doctor Wilhelm had said, one of 
the bearings had got too hot, and in a short while the 
engines would be working again. 

“Is there danger? ” the stewards were asked a thou- 
sand times. 

** No,” was the decided answer. 

To keep the air in her cabin pure, Ingigerd left the 
door slightly ajar; and the sight of the colossal Roland, 
as seen from her cabin, helplessly drifting in the ocean, 
by no means seemed to bear out the stewards’ declara- 
tion. 

“There is no use concealing the fact that we are 
scudding under bare poles,” said Hahlstrém. 

“We are dripping oil on the water,” said Wilhelm, 
pointing through the opening of the door to where 
Pander and a sailor were lowering a bag of sail-cloth 
filled with oil. With the heavy seas that kept sweeping 
down like great mountains in motion and the fearfully” 
boiling waves accompanying the swells, the measure 
seemed almost ridiculous. Each instant the dead 
Roland, constantly sending out its long-drawn signal, 
which sounded more like a call for help than a warning, 
was raised up on a plunging mountain of water, where 
there seemed as little prospect of safety as when it sank 


ATLANTIS | 161 


into the valleys. The great steamer seemed not to 
know where to turn. ‘The raging waters twisted it over 
now on its starboard side, now on its port side. Of its 
herculean might, nothing remained but its unwieldy, 
helpless bulk. It turned about slowly, and turned back 
again, and all of a sudden a fearful sea, like a thousand 
hissing white panthers leaping from a dark green moun- 
tain ridge, dashed over the railing. 

“That was bad,” said Wilhelm, slamming the door 
shut in the nick of time. Frederick’s nerves were in a 
state of tension, not in a mere metaphoric sense. They 
produced a purely physical sensation, as of violin 
strings too tightly drawn. 

“Is it making you nervous? ” asked Hahlstrém. 

** Somewhat,” said Frederick. “I don’t deny it. A 
man has strength and intelligence, but can’t exercise 
either, even when danger is imminent.” 

“Immediate danger?” asked Wilhelm. “No, we 
are not there yet. In the first place, the engines will 
be working again pretty soon; and secondly, even if we 
should really have to drift and had to resort to the sails, 
we could count on being perfectly easy in our minds a 
week from now.” 

** What do you mean by being easy in our minds? ” 
demanded Hahlstrém. 

“The storm is blowing from north-northwest. A 
ship like this never capsizes. So, in all probability, we 
should be carried to the Azores, where a steamer would 
“tow us into port. Or, perhaps, we should be driven 
even further south, and in a week we should be anchor- 
ing in view of the glorious Peak of Teneriffe.” 

** Many thanks for your Peak of Teneriffe. I have 
to be in New York. My daughter has an engagement 
there. We are under obligations to be there.”’ 


162 ATLANTIS 


“* A week of uncertainty would be ruin to my nervous 
system,” said Frederick. ‘I am not suited for this 
passive heroism. I might do more if I could be active.” 

**'You’ve read the ‘ Leatherstocking Tales,’ ” said 
Wilhelm, ironically. ‘ You know that the American 
Indians have greater respect for passive heroism. 
Think of the stakes on which they burn their captives 
to death.” 

** Never mind,” said Frederick. ‘ No martyr stakes 
for me. Were I to hear that the screw is broken and 
we should have to drift, my nerves couldn’t stand it. 
I would jump into the water. That is why I am against 
life-preservers. I wouldn’t accept one if it were offered 
to me ten times over. Why prolong the death agony? ” 


XLII 


Tue hours passed. The grey day went down into still 
greyer twilight. The ear-splitting tumult of the sea 
never ceased. Frederick, like everybody else, had in 
vain awaited the moment when the engines would be 
working again, and the helpless ship would resume its 
course. Everybody, with the anxiety of despair, 
watched whether the intervals between the great swells 
would lengthen or shorten. Sometimes a superstitious 
illusion that he was being persecuted would take hold 
of Frederick. Particularly awful were the cries of the 
emigrants penned in the steerage, which at short inter- 
vals penetrated above on deck. They wept and wailed 
and shrieked to heaven for help. They were like men 
driven mad by fear, fury and physical pain. 

Yet, as if nothing had happened, the call for dinner 
was trumpeted at the regular time through the gang- 





=. ee 





ATLANTIS 163 


ways of the drifting vessel, through that majestic, help- 
less ark, lighted by electricity, which, shining through 
the port-holes, turned the Roland with its crust of ice 
into a fairy palace, a mournful plaything of the waves. 

Frederick wondered who would have the phlegm or 
the courage or the desire to go to dinner. But Wilhelm 
cried, “* Come, gentlemen,” and since Rosa appeared, 
wet and courageous, to attend to the children, it was out 
of place for him to remain in the cabin, and there was 
nothing for him to do but join Doctor Wilhelm and 
Hahlstrém. The cockatoo was screeching and Ella was 
crying. ‘The child was refractory. Ingigerd was try- 
ing to console her, while Rosa reprimanded her rather 
energetically. 

** Would you like me to stay near here?” Frederick 
asked before leaving. ‘ It would mean a great deal to 
me if you would let me be entirely at your disposal, Miss 
Ingigerd.” 

“Thank you, Doctor von Kammacher, you will be 
coming again.” 

Frederick marvelled at the naturalness with which 
he had made the offer and she had accepted. 

Now an unexpected change set in, which allayed 
everybody’s excitement and went through Frederick’s 
muscles and nerves like a soothing stream. ‘The walls 
and floors of the Roland began to quiver faintly, a sign 
that her heart and pulse were beating again. It was 
the rhythm of its strength, the rhythm of its race to its 
goal. Ingigerd shouted with joy, like a child, and 
Frederick set his teeth. Renewed life, renewed pros- 
pects and hopes, the reassumption of system, the relaxa- 
tion of his nerves made him so weak that the tears 
almost started to his eyes. Choking down his emotion, 
he stepped out on deck. 


164 ATLANTIS 


Here the scene had changed. Blithely, in all its 
might, the Roland was leaping forward again into the 
roaring darkness. ‘That monstrous, seething witch’s 
cauldron of the boiling waters was now welcome to him. 
Again the Roland was tearing breaches in dark moun- 
tains, was rising to mountain heights, and madly plung- 
ing into deep valleys; during which, for many seconds 
at a time, the screw would whirl wildly in the turbulent 
air. 

Mr. Rinck was sitting on the threshold of his cabin, 
which was brightly lighted, smoking and petting his 
spotted cat. 

‘It’s good we’re under way again,” Frederick could 
not refrain from saying as he walked past. 

“Why?” said Rinck phlegmatically. 

“T for one,” said Frederick, “ would rather be run- 
ning under full steam than drifting helplessly.” 

* Why?” said Mr. Rinck again. 

In the gangways below, even though the ship was 
pitching, the atmosphere was fairly pleasant and lively. 
Everybody seemed to have forgotten his fear. The 
passengers, cracking jokes and clinging to the nearest 
stationary thing, reeled and stumbled into the dining- 
room. ‘The rattle of china near the kitchen was deafen- 
ing, especially when, as frequently happened, some of 
the plates broke. 

Frederick’s clothes were pretty well soaked, and he 
mustered up the courage to go to his cabin to dress. 
Adolph, his steward, came to help him, and told Fred- 
erick of a panic that had broken out in the steerage 
when the engines stopped, Some of the women with 
their babies on their arms had wanted to jump right 
into the water. It was with difficulty that the other 
emigrants had restrained them. One of the stewards 


Ae a EE 


oe — 


, =e 


ATLANTIS 165 


and a sailor had clutched a Polish woman by her feet 
just as she was taking the downward plunge. 

“You can’t blame these people for acting like cow- 
ards in this situation,” said Frederick. ‘ It would be 
strange if they didn’t. Who will insist that he can 
stand upright when the ground beneath his feet is giv- 
ing away? If a man were to say so, either he would 
be lying, or his lack of feeling would be so great as 
to degrade him below an animal.” 

“ Yes,” said the steward, “* but what would we do if 
we were so cowardly? ” 

Frederick now began to deliver one of those fiery 
dissertations that had won him a number of youthful 
auditors when he was a Privatdozent. 

“With you it is different,” he said. ‘ You are up- 
held, and at the same time rewarded, by the feeling 
that you are doing your duty. While we passengers 
are living in terror, the cooks have been boiling soup, 
cleaning fish, preparing vegetables, roasting and carv- 
ing, larding venison and so on.” ‘The steward laughed! 
** But I assure you, at times it is easier to roast a roast 
than to eat it.” And Frederick continued in a solemn, 
but for that very reason, roguish manner to philoso- 
phise on courage and cowardice. 


XLII 


Dryner began, and, though the weather had by no means 
improved, a comparatively large number of passengers 
had gathered in the dining-room. Mr. Pfundner, the 
head-steward, with his white hair curled and arranged 
by the barber, if not in a braid at the back of his 
head, yet like a wig of the rococo period, stood, as 


166 ATLANTIS 


usual, in majestic pose, before the false mantelpiece 
between the two entrance doors. It was the place from 
which he could best supervise the waiters and keep his 
eye on the whole dining-room. 

The band was playing Le Pére la Victoire by Ganne. 
This was followed by Gillet’s Loin du Bal. At 
Suppé’s overture from Banditenstreiche, the eternal 
skat players came tramping into the saloon, having 
delayed, as usual, to finish their game. At all the 
tables much wine was being drunk, because it strength- 
ened one’s courage and dulled one’s nerves. The pas- 
sengers toasted the Roland. It amused them. They 
were all conscious of the pleasant rhythm of the great 
engine, to which no music in the world was compara- 
ble. Over Vollstedt’s waltz, Lustige Briider, the com- 
pany with a sense of relief was still discussing the dan- 
ger they had safely escaped. 

* We hoisted distress signals.” 

* Rockets were shot off.” 

“They were already getting the life-belts and life- 
boats ready.” 

** Why, they were even dripping oil on the water.” 

The remarks flew about with the less restraint as 
neither the captain nor any of his officers were at 
table. 

“ The captain,” they said, “ has never left the bridge 
since morning.” 

Suddenly the port-holes were illuminated from out- 
side. Everybody, with an “ Oh!” of astonishment, let 
his knife and fork fall and jumped up from his. seat. 
“A ship!” ‘ A steamer!” all exclaimed, and crowded 
on deck. There, in overawing majesty, in the gleam 
of its thousand lights, one of the mightiest ocean liners 
of the time was rolling and pounding at a distance of 


ATLANTIS 167 


not more than fifty yards. ‘The Prince Bismarck, 
the Prince Bismarck!” the people cried, having heard 
the name from the officers and crew, who had recog- 
nised the vessel. “ Hurrah!” went up the full- 
throated cry. “ Hurrah!” Frederick shouted, and so 
did Wilhelm and so did Professor Toussaint. Every- 
body who could shouted “ Hurrah! ”—Ingigerd and 
the woman physician and the woman artist. They all 
waved their napkins or handkerchiefs. The same shout 
of joy went up from the steerage, and by way of greet- 
ing the two vessels let their steam whistles thunder. 
They,could see the passengers on the various decks of 
the Prince Bismarck waving to them, and, in spite of 
the noise of the tempest, could hear their faint hurrah. 

The Prince Bismarck, a twin-screw steamer, one of 
the first models of its kind, had just made its record- 
breaking trip, in which it had crossed the Atlantic 
Ocean in six days, eleven hours, and twenty-four min- 
utes. About two thousand people were now making 
the trip from New York to Europe. Two thousand 
people! That means twice as many as can fill a Berlin 
theatre from the orchestra to the top gallery. 

The Roland and the Bismarck exchanged lively flag 
signals. Yet the whole grandiose vision, from the mo- 
ment of its appearance to its disappearance, lasted only 
three minutes. In that time the seething ocean was 
flooded with light. It was not until nothing remained 
of the Bismarck but a dancing mist of light that its 
band came on deck and played. On the Roland they 
caught two or three trembling, fading measures of the 
national hymn, Heil dir im Siegerkranz. Within a few 
moments the Roland was again alone on the ocean, in 
the night, the tempest, and the snow-storm. 

With twice as much fire, the band now played a 


168 ATLANTIS 


quadrille by Karl, Festklinge, and a galop by Kiesler, 
Jahrmarktskandal; and with twice as much appetite 
and twice as much liveliness the passengers seated them- 
selves at dinner again. “ Fairylike!” they cried. 
“Glorious!” ‘Tremendous!’  ‘“ Colossal! ”— this 
last a favourite expression of the Germans. 

Even Frederick had a sense of pride and tranquillisa- 
tion. He felt a vital breath of that atmosphere which 
is no less necessary to the mind of the modern man than 
air is to his lungs. 

** No matter how much we resist the thought,” he said 
to Wilhelm, “ and no matter how much I railed yes- 
terday evening against modern culture, a sight like that 
must impress a man. It must go to the very marrow 
of his bones. -It is simply absurd that such a marvel- 
lous product of secret natural forces, joined together by 
man’s brains and hands, such a creation over creation, 
such a miracle has become even possible.” They 
touched glasses. The sound of clinking glasses could 
be heard all oygr the room. “ And what courage, what 
boldness has been built into that great living organism, 
what a degree of fearlessness in opposing those natural 
forces which man has been standing in awe of for thou- 
sands of years! What an audacious world of genius, 
from its keel to the top of its mast, from its bowsprit 
to its screw!” 

* And all this,”? responded Wilhelm, “has been at- 
tained in scarcely a hundred years. So it signifies only 
the beginning of a development. Object as much as 
you will, science, or rather technical progress, is eter- 
nal revolution and the only genuine reform of human 
conditions. Nothing can hinder this development that 
has begun. It is constant, eternal progress, yes, prog- 
ress itself,” 


ATLANTIS 169 


“Tt is the human intellect,’’ said Frederick, “ which 
throughout the centuries has been lying passive and 
has suddenly turned active. Undoubtedly man’s brains 
and, at the same time, social industry have entered a 
new phase.” 

“Yes,” said Wilhelm, “in a certain way the human 
intellect was already active in ancient times, but it 
fought too long with the man in the mirror.” 

“Then, let us hope,” said Frederick in confirmation, * 
‘that the last hour of the men that fight images, the 
swindlers, the South Sea Island medicine-men and ma- 
gicians, is not far off; that all filibusters and cynical 
freebooters, who for thousands of years have been living 
by the capture of souls, will strike sail before the fast, 
safe ocean-going steamer of civilisation, whose captain is 
intellect and whose sole steward is humanity.” 

After dinner, Frederick and Wilhelm climbed up to 
the smoking-room on deck. 

“It is difficult to comprehend,” said Frederick, when 
they reached the smoky little saloon, “how a vessel 
can keep its course in such a stormy, pitch-black night.” 

At the skat table, the players were sitting, smoking, 
drinking whisky and coffee, and tossing the cards on 
the table. Everything else seemed to be a matter of 
indifference to them. Frederick ordered wine and con- 
tinued to goad his mind into activity. His head ached. 
He could scarcely hold it upright on his aching neck. 
His eyelids ached with weariness; but when they 
drooped, his eyes seemed to radiate a painful light 
shining from within. Every nerve, every muscle, every 
cell in him was alert. He could not hope for sleep. 
How weeks in his life, months, years had passed as in | 
the twinkling of an eye! And this evening only three 
and a half days had elapsed since he boarded the Roland 


ee 





170 ATLANTIS 


at Southampton, a period with the content of years, in 
which seconds were eternities. Its beginning lay in the 
remote distance, at the conclusion of a life lived long 
before, on an earth from which he had parted long 
before. 

* You’re tired, Doctor von Kammacher,” said Wil- 
helm. ‘So I won’t invite you to the stoker’s funeral 
on the after-deck.” 

* Oh, I'll come,” said Frederick. He was obsessed 
by a stinging rage not to spare himself anything, but 
to taste to the dregs even the bitterest impressions of 
this detached, jogged and jolted a ace of a human 
world, 


XLIV 


Tue physicians arrived when they were sewing the 
stoker, Zickelmann, into sail-cloth. The bare cabin 
was not very brilliantly lighted by a single electric 
bulb. Frederick recalled his dream— how the dead 
stoker had been standing under the vines with the cords 
in his hand and had then led Peter Schmidt and himself 
to the Toilers of the Light. A great change had taken 
place in his appearance. His face was no longer of 
flesh, but seemed to be chiselled out of yellow wax, to 
which his hair, his eyebrows and beard were pasted. 
A faint, cunning smile seemed to be curving his mouth; 
and when Frederick with odd interest and curiosity 
scrutinised him closely, it seemed to him he was saying, 
*“ Legno santo! ‘'Toilers of the Light!” 

When the dead man’s face was covered up and his 
whole body had been sewed into the cloth in coarse 
stitches, the sailors bound the puppet, with difficulty 





ATLANTIS 171 


keeping it in position, on a smoothly planed board, 
weighted with iron. 

*¢ Will such a chrysalis ever really turn into a butter- 
fly? ” Frederick wondered. 

The procedure, a piece of reeling, staggering acro- 
batics, was less gruesome than ridiculous. Yet, though 
this long package might be only the mortal shell of an 
immortal soul, one had a sense of infinite sadness in 
entrusting it to the fearful solitudes of the ocean, 

Since in the stormy weather it was no easy matter 
to throw the corpse overboard and since it was impossi- 
ble to conduct ceremonies on a rolling deck constantly 
washed by the waves, the purser asked the few persons 
present — Captain von Kessel could not ledve the 
bridge — to say a silent prayer for the soul of the dead 
man. They did so, and four of the stoker’s mates, 
staggering, stopping, lurching and panting, carried the 
long package on deck to the railing, where at the word 
of command they let it slide into the sea. 

When Doctor Wilhelm bade Frederick good-night, 
he added: 

* You ought to try to go to sleep.” 

They parted, and Frederick hunted for a sheltered 
spot on deck, where he could spend the night. He 
wanted to look the wind and weather straight in the 
face, there in the glacial air, in the gloom under the 
pale sheen of the arc-lights fastened to the mast. He 
shuddered at the thought of a night in the oppressive 
confines of his cabin, with the closed port-hole and the 
hot, stale air. But that alone was not the reason which 
kept him chained to the deck. It was the urge, in case 
of danger, to be near Ingigerd Hahlstrém. And when 
he seated himself near the smoke-stack, with his back 
against the heated wall, his hat drawn low over his face, 


172 ' ATLANTIS 


his chin in his coat collar, he suddenly laughed to him- 
self bitterly. It was in the same position and on the 
selfsame spot that he had found Achleitner the night 
before. 

There was a rushing in Frederick’s ears. He ob- 
served the huge arcs that the lights on the mast de- 
scribed. He observed the regular onslaught of the 
waves, and above the seething and foaming of the water, 
he heard the miauing of the wind in the rigging, a 
wicked obstinate miauing, accompanied by the sudden 
spitting and leaping of a tiger. Then the sounds 
seemed to Frederick to be more like the pitiful whimper- 
ing of strayed children, a troop of children whom he 
could now distinctly discern weeping over the bier of the 
dead stoker. And there were the Toilers of the Light 
again. He immediately snatched for one to carry it 
to Ingigerd Hahlstrém in her cabin; but Ingigerd was 
dressing for her famous dance. The great spider was 
already hanging on the flower, weaving the cobweb in 
which Mara was later to entangle herself. Frederick 
asked for a broom. He wanted to prevent the dance 
by sweeping the spider away. A broom came, but in 
the form of a serving man, who was carrying water and 
pouring it out. Another man followed and a third and 
a fourth, until everything was. flooded with rushing 
waters. Frederick awoke from a dream in which he 
was learning sorcery. The momentous word that chains 
the floods was still on his lips. The waves rushed. 
He fell asleep again. Now it was the rushing of a 
stream at his feet. The sun was shining. It was a 
clear morning. From the other shore came his wife, 
young, beautiful, in a dress of flowered goods, rowing 
her skiff. Her full, gentle figure had the charm of the 
vestal virgin and the wife, From woods near-by, 


ATLANTIS 173 


Ingigerd appeared in the delicacy and the adornment 
of her light hair and naked body. The sunny land- 
scape, of which her pure nudity was a part, seemed to 
belong to the time before Adam and Eve were driven 
from Paradise. Frederick took his wife’s hand — she 
was smiling on him graciously — took Ingigerd Hahl- 
strém’s hand — she seemed to be gentle and pure and 
obedient — and joined them. He said to Ingigerd: 


* And thou shalt walk in brightness; 
I'll purge thee clean of all thy dross.” 


But the heavens darkened, the woods blackened, and 
the light of a ghostly moon rose over the trees, rushing 
fearfully like great waters. Frederick ran along the 
edge of gloomy fields, when suddenly the cry “ Moira! 
Moira!” resounded, and a piece of the darkness severed 
itself from the edge of the woods and soared heavily, as 
if borne by mighty black pinions. It was a gigantic 
bird, crying, “‘ Moira, Moira!” Frederick fled. He 
was struck by hideous fear, as if the fearful roc were 
after him. ‘“ Moira, Moira!” He drew his penknife 
to defend himself. | 

He awoke to find himself lying undressed in his berth. 
Someone had discovered him, as he had discovered Ach- 
leitner the night before, and had led him down to his 
cabin. But the cry “ Moira!” which reminded him of 
the More, the ancient goddesses of fate, still rang fear- 
fully in his ears. 


XLV 


Ir was still long before daylight, and he fell asleep 
again. This time on awaking he found himself in the 
corridor speaking to some stewards, already at work. 


174 ATLANTIS 


It slowly dawned upon him that he was clad in nothing 
but his night-shirt and must have been walking in his 
sleep. What, had he turned into a somnambulist! He 
was utterly disconcerted and ashamed and had to let 
one of the stewards help him back to his cabin. 

He found his cabin covered with about three inches 
of water, from a leaky pipe. Crawling into bed, he 
squeezed himself, to keep from being tossed out, into a 
hollow between the boards, a method he himself had 
devised. 

Shortly after six, he was on deck sitting on his bench, 
warming his hands on his hot tea-cup. The weather 
was frightful. The morning was of an icy dreariness 
unsurpassed. The fury of the sea had waxed. The 
falling twilight was a new sort of darkness. The roar- 
ing of the waters and the raging of the winds were 
deafening. Frederick’s ear-drums ached. But the 
ship struggled on, managing to pursue its course, 
though slowly. 

And suddenly — Frederick did not know whether to 
trust his hearing — above the noise of the sea rose 
Ariel strains, beginning solemnly and swelling serenely. 
It was the chords and melodies of a church choral. He 
was moved almost to tears. He recollected that this 
dreary morning was a Sunday morning, and the or- 
chestra, even in the midst of the cyclone, was carrying 
out its instructions to begin the day with devotional 
music. It was playing in the unused smoking-room 
half way up the companionway, whence the strains as- 
cended faintly to the deck. Everything lying heavily 
upon Frederick’s soul in chaos and struggle melted 
away before the seriousness, the simplicity, the inno- 
cence of this music. It brought back memories of his 
boyhood, of many a morning full of innocence, expecta- 


ATLANTIS 115 


tion, and anticipations of great happiness; Sundays, * 
holidays, his father’s and his mother’s birthdays, when 
the chorus of a regimental song woke him up in the 
morning. What was to-day compared with that past? 
What lay in between! What a sum of useless work, 
disenchantment, recognition bitterly paid for, posses- 
sion snatched after passionately and then lost, love 
trickled away, passion trickled away; how many meet- 
ings and hard partings; what an amount of wrestling 
with everything in general and in particular; how much 
purity of purpose dragged in the mud; how much striv- 
ing for freedom and self-determination, resulting only 
in impotent, blind imprisonment. 

Was he really a person of so much importance before 
God that He visited him with such bitter, refined chas- 
tisements ? 

“Tm wild!” screamed Hans Fiillenberg, who ap- 
peared at the entrance to the companionway. ‘I won’t 
put up with it, or else I’ll go insane.” 

Nevertheless, Hans Fiillenberg and Frederick and all 
the other passengers, though in the last degree ex- 
hausted, terrorized, desperate, expecting each moment 
to be their last, lived through the same awful strain, 
from hour to hour, from morning till evening, and from 
evening till morning again. 

To most of them it seemed impossible to hold out an 
hour longer. Yet there were to be three days more of 
it, they were told, before the Roland reached New York. 


XLVI 


Mownpay brought some sunshine, but no diminution of 
the tempest. It was fearful. Everything on deck 
not nailed or riveted was removed, The cries at reg- 


176 ATLANTIS 


war intervals piercing the struggling vessel from the 
steerage more resembled the bellowing of beasts under 
the knife of the slaughterer than human sounds. Mon- 
day night was one prolonged agony. Nobody, unless 
unconscious from weakness or the tortures of seasick- 
ness, closed an eye. 

At dawn Tuesday morning, each first-class passenger 
was startled by the word, “ Danger!” quietly uttered 
at his cabin door by a steward. 

Frederick had been lying a while on his bed dressed, 
when his steward opened the door and according to in- 
structions gravely pronounced the one word, “ Danger.” 
At the same time the herald of this message, as fraught 
with large significance as it was laconic, turned on the 
electric light. Frederick jumped to a sitting posture, 
and was annoyed by the water from the leaky pipe, 
which ran now from one side of the room to the other, 
as the vessel lurched. At first he was uncertain whether 
the word he had heard had really been pronounced, or 
whether it was an illusion of his unstrung nerves. 
Every night he had been torn with a jerk of his nerves 
from his restless dozing, only to find that the cause 
had been a delusive fall or a delusive cry. But now, 
when he distinctly heard the stewards rapping at the 
other cabin doors, heard the doors open, and heard the 
word, “ Danger,’ repeated several times, a sensation 
came over him that produced a most remarkable change 
in his condition. 

“Very well,” he said softly; and, as if he had been 
summoned to a game that did not concern him, he care- 
fully put on his heavy overcoat, and stepped out into 
the gangway. 

Here there was not a soul. 

* Very well,” he had been thinking, “ the invisible 


ATLANTIS 177 


powers, whose playthings we human beings are, will 
now completely expose their supreme brutality.” 

He had not been awakened from sleep; he had been 
awakened and brought to his sober reason from beneath 
a hundred strata of dreams and sleep. Now, in that 
empty corridor, it again seemed to him to be a fan- 
tastic illusion of his disordered brain; and he was about 
to return to his cabin, when he noticed for the first 
time that the rhythm of the engines and the churning 
of the screw were neither to be heard nor felt. Sud- 
denly he thought the great vessel was drifting in the 
ocean abandoned by passengers and crew, and he alone 
had been left behind from the general rescue. But a 
passenger in a silk dressing-gown reeled by, whom Fred- 
erick could question. 

“ What’s the matter, do you know? ” he asked. 

** Oh, nothing,” said the man. ‘“ I’ve only been look- 
ing for my steward. I’m thirsty. I want a glass of 
lemonade.” He staggered past Frederick into his 
cabin. 

** Ass!” Frederick mentally exclaimed, disgusted 
with himself for what he again believed was his illusion. 
Yet the silence weighed upon him dreadfully. Seized by 
a wild instinct, he could not help but suddenly rush 
forward, merely to be on deck. 

Somebody came toward him from the opposite direc- 
tion, and asked him where he was going. 

“Get out of my way,” said Frederick. “It’s none 
of your business.” 

But the hideous, half-dressed, corpse-like creature, 
besmirched by the traces of seasickness, would not make 
way. : 

* Are the stewards here all crazy? ” he cried. 

Hard by Frederick’s ear an electric bell began to 


178 | ATLANTIS 


hammer noisily, and the next moment the tottering 
phantom that barred his way was multiplied by ten, 
twenty, a host of similar phantoms. 

“'What’s the matter! What’s the matter! We’re 
sinking! ” 

“Steward! Steward!’ a voice commanded; and an- 
other, “ Captain! Captain!” 

** Wretched service!” a man scolded in a voice that 
broke. ‘No stewards about. What do they mean by 
it?’ The call bells began to rage. 

Frederick turned, and ran down the endless corridor 
to the after part of the vessel. Nobody intercepted 
him. He passed the windows of the engine-room. The 
cylinders and pistons were not stirring. From the 
depths of the ship, from the boilers and furnaces, a 
sound of rushing, splashing water penetrated above the 
creaking and grinding of the walls. 

“ Did a boiler burst? ” Frederick thought, forgetting 
that there would have been the report of an explosion 
and the hiss of escaping steam, ° 

But he hastened on without stopping, past the post 
office, on his way through the second cabin to the stern. 
In his flight it occurred to him how happy he had been 
in Paris when at Cook’s office they had told him that 
by great haste he could still make the Roland at 
Southampton. Why had he been in such a fever of 
impatience, in such dread of missing the boat and rush- 
ing into the open arms of doom? For there was no 
veiling the fact that something fearful had happened to 
the Roland. 

At the door of the second cabin, he encountered the 
barber. 

“ The fires are out,” said the barber. “ A collision. 
The water is pouring into the hold below my shop.” 


ATLANTIS 179 


The hammering of the bells never ceased. The bar- 
ber was dragging two life-preservers. 

“What do you need two for?” Frederick asked, and 
took one and sped on. ; 


XLVII 


He reached the door leading to the after deck, but 
could not open it. From the position of the ship, he 
realized that something irretrievable had happened. On 
the port side, the steamer was lying high, on the star- 
board side, it was only ten or twelve feet above the 
level. As the stern was also much lower than the bow, 
it would have been a practically hopeless venture to 
clamber forward across the deck, especially with the 
heavy seas that were constantly sweeping it. 
Willy-nilly, he must return through the mole’s gal- 
lery he had traversed to the forward part of the boat. 
Scarcely fifteen seconds later, when he had reached 
the forward entrance to the deck, at the head of the 
companionway leading up from the dining-room, he 
could not have told how he succeeded in making his 
way through the corridor jammed with panicky pas- 
sengers without having been beaten to death, strangled, 
or trodden underfoot. His hands and forehead were 
bruised, and he was clinging to the door-post with all 
his might, parleying violently with Doctor Wilhelm. 
Doctor Wilhelm clutched him, and the two physicians, 
in defiance of death, climbed up to the bridge, where 
they huddled in the shelter of the deck-house on the 
port side. They saw something huge rise high up in 
the morning twilight and fly madly above their heads. 
The next instant they were drenched up to their waists, 


180 ATLANTIS 


and would have been washed overboard, had they not 
clung to the railing with all their strength. ; 

On the bridge it looked pretty much as usual. Cap- 
tain von Kessel, apparently quite composed, was leaning 
forward, and the giant Von Halm was searching the 
ever-thickening fog with spy-glasses. The siren was 
howling, and rockets were being shot off from the bow. 
On the captain’s right stood the second mate. The 
third mate had just received the order: 

* Cut the falls. Get the boats away.” 

** Cut the falls. Get the boats away,” he repeated 
and disappeared to execute the order. 

To Frederick, it all seemed unreal. Moments such 
as this, to be sure, had entered his imagination as within 
the realm of the possible; but now he realised that he 
had never reckoned with them seriously. He knew the 
fact confronting him stood there inexorable; neverthe- 
less, he was unable to grasp it in convincing reality. 
He was telling himself he ought to try to get into a 
boat, when the captain’s blue eyes glanced at him, but 
apparently with no recognition in them. The captain’s 
commands were uttered in his beautiful voice, remotely 
suggesting the clinking sound of colliding billiard balls. 

* Women and children starboard.” 

** Women and children starboard,” came like a near, 
word-for-word echo. 

Now Max Pander stepped up to the captain. He 
had the noble idea of proffering him a life-belt. Von 
Kessel’s hand found its way for an instant to his cap. 

‘No, thank you, my boy, I don’t need it. But here 
—” he took a pencil from his pocket, wrote a hasty 
line on a piece of paper, and handed it to Pander. 
** Jump in a boat and, if you can, bring this greeting 
to my sisters.” 


ATLANTIS | 181 


A heavy sea swept over the port side, and a tre- 
mendous swell raised and turned and twisted the colossal 
vessel. Frederick in vain tried to rouse himself from 
the leaden indifference that had come upon him in view 
of the incomprehensible drama. Suddenly, he was 
seized with horror, but he fought it down. At no cost 
was he to show cowardice either to himself or to others. 
Nevertheless, he followed Doctor Wilhelm, who stuck 
close to Max Pander’s heels. 

“We must get into one of the boats,” said Doctor 
Wilhelm. “ There’s no doubt we are sinking.” 

The next moment Frederick found himself in Ingi- 
gerd’s cabin. 

“Hurry!” he cried. “The people are already 
jumping into the boats.” 

He had left the cabin door open, and close by they 
could see Pander and two sailors hacking away with 
axes at the frozen tackles by which a life-boat was 
suspended. 

Ingigerd asked for her father. She asked for Ach- 
leitner. 

** There’s no time now for you to think of anybody. 
but yourself. It’s impossible to go below deck. It 
would mean sure death,” Frederick explained. ‘‘ Get 
dressed! Get dressed!” 

Ingigerd mutely hastened to carry out his orders. 
_ It was not until then that one of the stewards passing 
her cabin called in his brief message, “ Danger! ” 

* Danger! What’s the matter? Are we sinking? ” 
she cried. 

But Frederick had already picked her up and car- 
ried her over to the boat, which the next instant gave 
way under the axe and fell into the misty turmoil be- 
low. | 


182 ATLANTIS 


“Women and children on the other side!” the third 
mate shouted commandingly. 

His order referred not only to Ingigerd, but also to 
the maid Rosa, who, fiery-red with her exertions, ap- 
peared on deck dragging her mistress and both the 
children, with the air of a housewife loaded with pur- 
chases, afraid of missing a street car. 

**'Women and children on the other side!” the third 
mate repeated in somewhat too Prussian a manner. 
Fortunately his presence was now required for the next 
boat, over which the struggles were already commencing. 

There was no time to be lost, and despite the de- 
termined resistance of two sailors, Frederick, Pander, 
and Doctor Wilhelm let Ingigerd safely down into the 
boat. In doing so, Frederick also turned somewhat 
too loud-voiced and Prussian. Through his iron en- 
ergy, which hewed down resistance as the sailors had 
hewed at the life-boat tackles, he succeeded in having 


the children, Mrs. Liebling, and finally Rosa lowered . 


into the boat. It was no easy matter. Frederick heard 
himself shouted at, roared at, and commanded, and he, 
in turn, shouted at the sailors, commanded, and roared. 
He fought, he worked, though without a gleam of hope 
and with the positive consciousness that the situation 
was beyond salvation. All was over, all was lost. If 
he had not thought so before, the next occurrence would 
have convinced him. 

A second boat had been lowered, and three sailors 
had jumped in. It rolled from side to side and rose 
on a wave. About eight or nine other persons leapt for 
it — Frederick thought he recognised familiar figures. 
It filled and disappeared. As if by sleight-of-hand, the 
spot where the boat with the dozen people in it had 


ATLANTIS 183 


been dancing turned into empty sea with mist and spray 
driving over it. 

Slowly the dark grey of the early dawn turned into 
the lighter grey of the day, approaching coldly and 
indifferently. When the fog lifted a little, Frederick 
for seconds at a time had a dismaying illusion that he 
was in a green valley with glorious, flowery meadows, 
through which a snowstorm of blossoms was sweeping. 
But then the mountains came, driven by the fero- 
cious spirits of the hurricane, and closed down on the 
valley. The heavy, glassy heights broke, and with the 
weight of their fluid masses, snapped away two of the 
Roland’s masts like reeds. 3 

With its boilers quenched, the poor wreck could no 
longer send up a cry for help. Its sad body was still 
towering upward at the bow in colossal majesty. 

Rockets flew, signals of distress fluttered briskly from 
the foremast; a futile language in that merciless raging 
of the elements. 

In the steerage it had grown still. But from the 
port side came a peculiar, persistent, unbroken sound, 
resembling the shouting and screaming of a crowd on 
toboggan-slides and merry-go-rounds at a village fair. 
A buzzing as of swarming bees pierced distinctly 
through the roaring of the tempest, while above it rose 
the shrieking of infuriated, frenzied women. Frederick 
thought of his dark-eyed Deborah. She, too, was 
doomed. He thought of Wilke. 

Bulke, the faithful valet, appeared, leading Arthur 
Stoss by his coat collar. Within the next few moments, 
Wilke also appeared. He had been drinking, and was 
shouting as if the whole thing were a frolic; but he 
was half dragging, half carrying on deck an old, wheez- 


184 ATLANTIS 


ing working woman. ‘Thrusting Stoss and Bulke aside, 
he landed her safely in the boat. 

Ingigerd was clamouring incessantly for her father 
and Achleitner. Instead of either of these, Stoss, whom 
Bulke and Wilke had lowered by a rope, dropped down 
beside her. 

About thirty feet from Frederick, a man was stand- 
ing in a cabin door, carefully hooked back. With 
incredible calm he was smoking a cigarette and in- 
haling, and stroking a yellow cat on his arm. 

** It looks pretty bad, doesn’t it, Mr. Rinck? ” Fred- 
erick said, going up to him. 

66 Why? 29> 

* Well, don’t you think we’re lost?” 

Mr. Rinck shrugged his shoulders without answering. 

** What’s the matter? What’s the matter? ” some- 
body bellowed in his ear. 

** Nothing,” he said, stroking his cat. 

In the meantime Bulke and Wilke had lowered Doctor 
Wilhelm into the boat. 

“That girl down there is giving herself a sore throat 
screaming for her father,” said Bulke. 

Frederick decided, cost what it might, to take a look 
around below deck. Perhaps fortune might favour 
him; he might discover Hahlstrém and perhaps Achleit- 
ner, too, and help one or both into the boat. There was 
danger, to be sure, that the boat would put off before 
he returned. . 

He had worked his way as far as the unused smoking- 
room. It was empty. Suddenly Wilke was standing 
beside him. 

“If you’re looking for somebody, Ill help,” the 
peasant declared. 

The two together descended the rest of the com- 


Se — 


ATLANTIS 185 


panionway. The space in front of the dining-room 
was empty and so was the dining-room. It was tilted 
at an acute angle. A heap of dishes and silverware 
blocked the doorway. 

“* Hahlstrom! Achleitner!” Frederick shouted again 
and again. 3 

Wilke pushed a short way down the long corridor, on 
which the cabins gave. But the spot closed off by the 
rising waters was only too clearly distinguishable. 

** Come away, come away! ” Frederick cried, and ran. 
He ran for his life. He ran in wild fear of missing the 
boat. 


XLVI 


A moment later he was on deck, over the railing, and 
in the boat. The men wanted to put off. Frederick 
protested, and disputed loudly with the third mate, who 
in the meantime had entered the boat and was grasping 
the tiller. 

He could not make up his mind to desert Wilke of 
the Heuscheuer, who had so courageously followed him 
below deck and had not yet reappeared. But now he 
saw him, literally sliding from the companionway en- 
trance to the railing. 

“Wilke! Wilke!” he shouted. ‘“ Jump into the 
boat! ” 

“Right away, right away,” Wilke answered several 
times. ‘Then he did something that Frederick tried to 
scold him out of doing, because it seemed so senseless 
and useless to everybody in the boat. He had dis- 
covered a number of life-belts and was throwing them 
from various points out on the water, where persons 


186 ATLANTIS 


swept overboard might be struggling desperately for 
their lives. 

The boat did not wait for him. Under the third 
mate’s command, the sailors began to row. The sea 
favoured them, and soon they were more than thirty 
yards from the Roland’s side. 

Now they could see the spot where another vessel, or 
a drifting derelict, had bored the flank of the Roland, 
making a great gash near the engine-room. Since the 
whole of the breach was not yet under water, they could 
see the foaming sea streaming into the hold. Frederick 
thought he could hear its greedy gulping. At the 
sight, for all the horror about him, he felt a desire to 
burst into mourning for the brave warrior Roland, and 
with difficulty restrained an outcry. The fog closed in 
* and hid the fatally wounded giant from view. 

When, in a few moments, the mist cleared, the wreck 
had in some incomprehensible way turned. The twenty 
persons in the boat looked down from a dizzy height 
upon the after part of the deck, almost on a level with 
the water. They shrieked in terror, for they thought 
that the next instant they would be hurled down upon 
the mass of human beings wedged in there, swarming 
like ants. 

Not until that moment did Frederick grasp to its 
full extent the casastrophe that was occurring, a catas- 
trophe beyond human conception. All those dark little 
crowding ants, helplessly running up and down, were 
tearing at one another, hitting about, beating, wrestling, 
forcing their way. Groups of men and women were 
united in struggling knots. Some of the life-boats that 
had not yet been lowered seemed to have turned into 
dark, swaying bunches of grapes, from which every now 


ATLANTIS 187 


and then a single grape dropped off and fell into the 
sea. 

Once more the fog and spray hid the ship from view. 
But a sound, which Frederick did not immediately con- 
nect with the ghastly spectacle on the deck, rose above 
the seething and roaring of the merciless sea and the 
metallic clanging of the hurricane. For several seconds 
Frederick’s thoughts were far away in a certain place 
near his home, a wide, marshy meadow-land, where 
great flocks of migrating birds stopped to rest in their 
passage. But it was not the chirping of joyous birds 
that reached his ears through the fog. It was the out- 
cry of those human beings, who were suffering some- 
thing so horrible, beyond all conception, that no human 
crime, he felt, could be great enough to justify such 
atonement. He distinctly felt how, through the excess 
of the hideous impression, the bridge carrying the mes- 
sage of his senses to his innermost soul snapped. 

But suddenly the fever of the visible death struggle 
of eight or nine hundred innocent men after all did 
penetrate to his innermost soul, and wrung a cry from 
him, in which the whole boat load joined as by command. 
In that cry were fear, anguish, fury, protest, supplica- 
tion, horror, wailing, cursing, and despair. 

And the horror was increased by the consciousness 
that there was no merciful ear to listen, but only a deaf * 
heaven. Wherever Frederick turned his eyes, he saw 
death. Indifferently the bottle-green, mountainous 
waves came rolling. In their march there was a mur- 
derous regularity, with which nothing interfered and 
which recognised no obstacles. He closed his eyes 
ready to die. Several times he felt for his parents’ let- 
ters in his breast pocket, as if he needed them for pass- 


188 ATLANTIS 


ports to the land of darkness, where he was soon going. 
He dared not open his eyes again, because he could no 
longer bear to see the convulsions of the women in the 
boat or the hideous massacre on the stern of the Roland. 

The sea raged. It was icy cold. The water froze 
on the edge of the boat. Rosa, the maid, was the only 
one that constantly bestirred herself to help others, the 
children, Mrs. Liebling, Ingigerd, and Arthur Stoss. 
Bulke and she vied with each other in bailing out the 
water in which Stoss and Mrs. Liebling were lying and 
which reached to the knees of the others. — 

What was in the meantime happening on the deck 
of the Roland, so far as Frederick caught momentary 
glimpses of it, did not fit in with his conception of hu- 
man nature. The things he thought he saw in detail 
had nothing in common with those civilised, decorous 
ladies and gentlemen whom he had seen in the dining- 
room and on deck, promenading, conversing, smiling, 
exchanging greetings, and daintily dissecting the fish 
on their plates with forks. He could have sworn that he 
distinguished the white figure of a cook cutting his way, 
with a long knife, through the honourable person of a 
first-class passenger for whom he had cooked. Fred- 
erick was convinced he saw a stoker, a black fellow, 
strike a woman who was clinging to him — perhaps she ~ 
was the beautiful Canadian — pick her up and throw 
her overboard. Some stewards, whom he distinctly 
recognised, were still heroically executing orders. But 
they got entangled in fighting groups. One of them 
covered with blood, struggling and shouting, helped a 
woman and her child into a life-boat, but the boat cap- 
sized and disappeared. 

“Father! “My father!’ Ingigerd suddenly cried. 
It was only a faint breath blown away by the raging 


ATLANTIS 189 


elements. She pointed, and Frederick looked where she 
pointed with vacant, staring eyes. Again the fog lifted 
and opened a sort of gap through which the sinking 
steamer could be seen in all its length. Somebody was 
standing at the railing waving a white handkerchief. It 
was impossible to tell who it was. But a man whom 
Frederick recognised as distinctly as if he were looking 
through a spy-glass was Hans Fiillenberg, racing about 
like a madman, leaping with the agility of a squirrel 
from one point of the deck to the other. 

The port-holes, making a slanting line from stem to 
stern, still shone with the electric lights inside. Now 
and then a stifled shot could be heard, as a rocket rose 
up into the air, making a pale line of light. But soon 
the gem-like gleam of the port-holes was extinguished. 
As if the sea in its unbridled hate of man’s work had 
been waiting for this event, it swept over the deck from 
the other side. ‘That instant the waters on the near 
side swarmed with human beings, swimming, shrieking, 
and struggling. 

Suddenly, no one knew how, the boat was carried 
close to the Roland again, where maddened, half- 
drowned, desperate men clutched at it. A hideous, bes- 
tial conflict began. 

Frederick saw it all, yet without seeing it. Although 
it went on under his very eyes, it seemed to be happen- 
ing at an infinite distance. He struck at something. 
It was a hand, an arm, a head, a wet monster of the 
deep, shrieking in a voice not human. Suddenly, pulled 
backwards by the merciless hands of a hidden execu- 
tioner, it disappeared. Frederick saw how, with the 
strength of desperation, Rosa’s red fists and Mrs. Lieb- 
ling’s and Ingigerd’s little cramped fingers unloosened 
the hold of the hand or arm of a fellow-man from the icy 


190 ATLANTIS - 


edge of the boat. The sailors used their oars in a way 
that produced dark spurts of blood. 

None in the boat noticed that the third mate disap- 
peared, that Bulke took his place at the helm, and that 
in the bottom of the boat lay a long-haired young man, 
who gave no sign of life. 

The servant, Bulke, took command. For the sake 
of something to do and to delay the inevitable capsizing, 
Frederick and Wilhelm each seized an oar and rowed 
with the sailors. 

Minutes passed. .The fog lifted. Many eternally 
moving mountains and valleys of water had rolled be- 
tween the little boat and the wreck. Of the Roland, the 
mighty fast mail steamer of the North German Steam- 
ship Company, nothing was to be seen. 


XLIX 


Late in the afternoon of the same day, the captain of 
a sturdy little trading vessel from Hamburg sighted a 
boat drifting on the long, high swells. The weather 
was clear, and the captain made certain that the people 
in the boat were signalling with handkerchiefs. Within 
half an hour, the shipwrecked passengers of the Roland 
were with great difficulty hoisted on board the trader, 
one at a time. 

There were fifteen persons in all, three sailors and a 
cabin-boy, with the well-known name of the Roland on 
their caps, two ladies, a woman evidently from the steer- 
age, a maid, a long-haired man of about thirty in a 
velvet jacket, an armless man, the man who had been 
steering, two other men, and two children, a boy and a 


girl, The boy was dead. 


ATLANTIS 191 


The hardships and terrors to which the delicate child 
had succumbed had had almost equally dire effects upon 
the others. With the exception of the maid Rosa, they 
looked as if they had been drowned beyond hope of re- 
suscitation. A very wet man—it was Frederick — 
attempted to drag an unconscious wet young woman up 
the gangway-ladder, but his strength failed him, and 
the sailors of the trader had to catch him as he tottered, 
take the young woman from his arms, and help him 
struggle up the ladder on deck, like a man whose every 
bone and muscle is racked by rheumatism. Attempting 
to speak, he could produce only an asthmatic, sibilant 
wheeze. On deck, he groaned, burst: into a senseless, 
cackling laugh, and spread out his purple, frozen hands. 
His lips, too, were purple, and his sunken eyes glowed 
feverishly from a face crusted with dirt and brine. He 
seemed to want nothing so much as to be dried, warmed 
and cleaned. 

He was followed by Rosa. Upon laying an uncon- 
scious little girl in the arms of the first mate, she turned 
back to descend to the boat again, but found the way 
barred by Bulke and one of the sailors of the trader, 
hauling up the armless actor, Arthur Stoss. He was 
dripping wet, his eyes were staring blankly, his nose was 
running, and his eyelids were red and inflamed, while 
the tip of his nose was waxen white. After several vain 
attempts to produce a sound through his chattering 
teeth, he finally succeeded in framing “ Rum! Hot 
rum! ” 

A mutual inclination seemed to make Bulke and Rosa 
pull together in their rescue work like two old mates. 
Fairly raining water, they descended again for Mrs. 
Liebling, who was lying prone in the bottom of the boat 
in a serious condition. 


192 ATLANTIS 


** She’s dead, and the boy is dead,” said the sailors of 
the trader, and wanted first to carry up the other 
woman, the steerage passenger, who showed she was still 
alive by a rattle in her throat, fearful to hear. Rosa 
burst into a howl and swore Mrs. Liebling was not dead. 

* She’s blue,” the sailors declared. ‘ She swallowed 
too much water.” : 

But Rosa would not desist, and the sailors were com- 
pelled to carry Mrs. Liebling up first. 

As they were lifting on deck the unconscious woman 
from the steerage, still emitting the fearful rattle, one 
of the Roland sailors, whose feet were frozen and who, 
during the whole long, dreadful drifting about on the 
ocean had not uttered a sound, suddenly began to bellow 
in pain. 

* Shut up!” said his mates. ‘ Don’t carry on like 
an old woman.” 

He was the next to be lifted on board, merely whim- 
pering now in ineffable agony. After him came the 
man in the velvet jacket, who was maundering, Doctor 
Wilhelm, Max Pander, and the other two sailors. 
Lastly the little corpse of Siegfried Liebling was lifted 
from the boat. 

When the absurdly dressed man with long hair 
reached deck, he performed the drollest antics. For a 
moment he would stand upright, chest out, like a recruit, 
the next instant bow profoundly, or take aim, as if 
hunting; and all the time he kept bawling: 

“T’m an artist. I paid for my cabin. I am well 
known in Germany ”— striking a conscious attitude — 
*T am Jacob Fleischmann. I am a painter, from 
Fiirth.” 

Every now and then he would writhe pitifully and 


ee 


ATLANTIS 193 


vomit salt water. The water dripping from his clothes 
formed a pool where he stood. 

Doctor Wilhelm had completely lost the faculty of 
speech. All he could do was to sneeze incessantly. 

In the meantime, the steward of the vessel brought 
Frederick hot tea, and one of the sailors, who acted as 
barber and nurse on the vessel, attempted to restore 
Mrs. Liebling to life. Within less than two minutes, 
Frederick felt sufficiently revived to meet the demands 
of the occasion and assist the sailor-nurse with his Good 
Samaritan work. 

After swallowing several glasses of brandy, Doctor 
Wilhelm with the help of the chief engineer, Mr. Wen- 
dler, attempted to revive Siegfried Liebling, though 
with small hope of success. 

Mrs. Liebling, in no wise differing from a corpse, had 
been laid on the long mahogany table in what would 
have been the dining-room, had the vessel been carry- 
ing passengers. Ugly, dark, purplish patches dis- 
figured the forehead, cheeks, and throat of the woman, 
who was still young and who, before the shipwreck, had 
been beautiful. On baring her body, they found that 
it, too, was marked, though less closely, with the same 
gangrenous spots, somewhat duller in colour. Her 
body was swollen. Death might have resulted from 
choking in a moment when she fell into a faint unob- 
served by any of her companions. ‘Toward the last, 
there had been several feet of water in the boat, and 
Rosa had for some time been entirely occupied with the 
dying boy. 

When Frederick and the sailor-nurse laid Mrs. Lieb-. 
ling’s body face downward on the table, water flowed 
from her nose and mouth. Her heart was no longer 


194 ATLANTIS 


beating, and she gave no sign of life. As Frederick 
assumed, what had happened was, that she had sunk 
unconscious to the bottom of the boat and had lain for 
some time under water. He opened her mouth, forced 
her gold-filled teeth apart, put her tongue in the right 
position, and removed mucus, which had gathered at the 
opening of the air-passages. While the ship’s cook 
rubbed her body with hot cloths, Frederick tried to in- 
duce artificial respiration by raising and lowering her 
arms and legs like a pump-handle. 

The mahogany table took up the larger part of the 
low, creaking saloon, the only one the vessel possessed. 
It was on the quarter-deck and was lighted from above. 
The two walls running the length of the room were 
formed of the mahogany doors of the twelve state- 
rooms, six on each side. In the twinkling of an eye the 
deserted saloon was converted into a medical laboratory. 

A common sailor had peeled Ingigerd Hahlstrém out 
of her clothes, and without circumstance had laid her 
delicate body, shining like mother-of-pearl, on a couch 
against the wall taking up the full width of the room. 
At Frederick’s instruction, he rubbed her body vigor- 
ously with woollen cloths. Rosa was doing the same for 
Ella Liebling, who was the first to be put to bed. The 
steward was working away in a glow of zeal to get each 
of the dozen beds freshly spread, and as soon as the 
second one was ready, Ingigerd was laid between the 
warmed covers. Thanks to his faithful valet, Arthur 
Stoss, his teeth still chattering, was the next to be ready 
for bed. 

Jacob Fleischmann gave his rescuers much trouble. 
When a sailor spoke to him kindly and attempted to un- 
dress him, he struck about wildly, and shouted in a rage, 
* Tm an artist!” 


ATLANTIS 195 


The steward and Bulke had to hold him fast and use 
main force in putting him to bed. Doctor Wilhelm 
abandoned his vain efforts to revive Siegfried Liebling 
and came with his leather case of drugs, which he had 
managed to save, just in time to give the painter an 
injection of morphine. 

The sailor whose agony of pain had overcome him be- 
fore he was lifted on deck had such badly swollen, frost- 
bitten feet that his boots had to be cut off bit by bit. 
He clenched his teeth to keep from screaming, and 
merely uttered low groans until they laid him in bed; 
when he called for chewing tobacco. 

The woman from the steerage clad in rags was also 
put to bed. All she could tell was that she was bound 
for Chicago with her sister, her four children, her hus- 
band, and her mother. Nothing of what had in the 
meantime befallen her seemed to have penetrated, or re- 
mained in, her consciousness. 

The whole while Frederick, his upper body bared, 
with only the barber to help him, kept working unin- 
terruptedly over Mrs. Liebling. It was good for him, 
because it made him perspire. Finally, however, his 
strength gave out, and Doctor Wilhelm came to his re- 
lief. He tottered into the nearest cabin, the door of 
which stood open, and fell face downward into the un- 
made bed, utterly exhausted. 


L 


Arter a time Mr. Butor, the captain of the Hamburg, 
now speeding on its way, appeared in the saloon to 
welcome and congratulate the two physicians, who, not- 


196 ATLANTIS 


withstanding their extreme exhaustion, were still work- 
ing without cease over Mrs. Liebling’s body. 

The room, of course, was flooded and was reeking 
with the sweetish-sour smell of human exhalations. 
The captain sent a sailor to fetch dry clothes for Fred- 
erick. 

While continuing their efforts and relieving each other 
at intervals, Doctor Wilhelm and Frederick gave a short 
account of the catastrophe on the Roland. Captain 
Butor was greatly astonished. ‘Though the weather 
throughout his trip had not been especially good, yet 
it had not been the reverse. Most of the time, as at 
present, it had been clear, with a stiff wind and a moder- 
ately high sea. His vessel was bound for New York 
with a cargo of oranges, wine, oil, and cheese from Fayal 
in the Azores, to which it had carried a load of agricul- 
tural implements from Hamburg. 

Frederick and Wilhelm could give little information 
concerning the cause of the accident. Wilhelm said 
that shortly before six in the morning, he had been 
' awakened by a sound like the clang of a gong. In his 
half-waking state, he thought it was the signal to dinner, 
until he remembered that on the Roland a trumpet blast 
was used to announce meals. 

Frederick thought the Roland had probably struck a 
wreck or a rock. But rocks, the captain said, were out 
of the question. ‘There were none in those waters, and 
the Roland could not have been carried by strong cur- 
rents into a region where there were rocks, since in that. 
event the life-boat would not have entered the course of 
his own vessel within so short a time. The skipper, 
who knew Captain von Kessel personally and had met 
him in Hamburg only recently, spoke of him in the high- 
est terms, as one of the most experienced, trustworthy 


ATLANTIS 197 


captains in the German merchant marine. ‘The catas- 
trophe, he said, was possibly the worst that had occurred 
in decades, if the steamer had actually sunk and not 
been towed into a port. 

Before leaving, Captain Butor invited the two men, 
as soon as their task was ended, to supper at the mess 
table. 

An hour and a half passed. The physicians were 
about to give up their attempts to resuscitate Mrs. 
Liebling, when her heart began to stir and her breast 
to heave. Rosa’s joy was boundless. With the great- 
est difficulty restraining an emotional outburst, she felt 
the warmth return even to Mrs. Liebling’s soles, which 
she had been rubbing unwearyingly with her palms, 
hard as flat-irons. The rescued woman was carried to 
bed and packed in hot water bottles, like a premature 
baby. 

This great success of the physicians’ efforts — it was 
like a raising of the dead — produced profound emo- 
tion in all that witnessed it, including Frederick and 
Doctor Wilhelm, who were suddenly moved to shake 
hands with each other. 

“We have been saved,” said Wilhelm. ‘ The most 
improbable, the most incredible thing has actually hap- 
pened.” 

* Yes,” rejoined Frederick. “It has actually hap- 
pened. It is absolutely the most improbable thing that 
has ever occurred in my life. The question is, What * 
were we saved for? ”’ 


LI 


Tue mess-room of the Hamburg was a small square 
cabin with iron walls, its only furniture a square table 


198 ATLANTIS 


and a bench running around three sides. Once a person 
was seated, it was impossible to pass him; and when the 
officers gathered for meals, they shoved themselves into 
place in a certain order, the captain first. 

At seven o’clock Doctor Wilhelm and Frederick ap- 
peared for supper. They found a soup tureen sending 
up clouds of steam and a well-constructed oil lamp over 
the table shedding a cheerful light. The Hamburg was 
not lighted by electricity. 

The two physicians, like all victims of accidents, the 
objects of really touching solicitude, were assigned seats 
against the warmest wall, dividing the cabin from the 
engine-room. Captain Butor served the strong hot 
soup, and Mr. Wendler, chief engineer, a rotund little 
mariner, in an attempt to enliven the shipwrecked men, 
cautiously ventured a joke or two even before the roast 
was served. He came from Lindenau near Leipzig, and 
the rest of the crew teased him for his Low German. 

“Don’t talk,” said the captain to Wilhelm and 
Frederick. ‘“ Just eat, drink, and sleep.” 

At first they were inclined to take his advice, but in 
the course of the meal, after one of the sailors had 
served an immense cut of roast beef, and the captain 
had carved it, and they had washed the meat down with 
red wine, their spirits rose from moment to moment. 

Bulke appeared at the door showing evidences of the 
royal banquet to which he and the sailors of the Roland 
had been treated by the sailors of the Hamburg. Not- 
withstanding his condition, pardonable enough in the 
circumstances, he would not go to sleep without first re- 
ceiving instructions from Doctor Wilhelm and Fred- 
erick, before whom he stood in military attitude, hand 
to his cap, awaiting orders. 

It was decided that the sailor-nurse and another sailor 








ATLANTIS 199 


of the Hamburg should go on night duty, since all the 
men from the Roland needed rest and sleep. 

Though Frederick’s and Doctor Wilhelm’s spirits 
rose visibly, they never referred to the sinking of the 
Roland. It was too tremendous a thing, too dreadful, 
too near for any of the survivors, except the sailors, to 
speak of it without intense emotion. It was like a dull 
weight on their souls. Whatever Wilhelm and Fred- 
erick said related merely to their difficulties in the life- 
boat, or to the trip on the Roland before it overstepped 
that moment in eternity which determined its awful 
fate. 

“Captain,” said Frederick, “ you don’t know how 
astonishing it is to be raised from the dead, Conceive 
a man who has taken definite leave of everything that 
was dear to him in life, who has felt the rattle in his 
throat, and received extreme unction, and death, death 
itself, has settled on his flesh and limbs. I still feel 
death in my joints. And yet I am sitting here in safety, 
in the pleasant lamplight, almost as in a circle of friends 
and relatives. I am sitting in the cosiest home, with the 
difference that I still cannot get myself to look upon 
you ”— they were the captain, the engineer, the boat- 
swain, and the first mate —‘ as something so insignifi- 
cant as mere men.” 

“When we sighted the Hamburg,” said Wilhelm, 
* T had just made my last will and testament. You 
see I don’t give myself up for lost as quickly as my 
friend, Doctor von Kammacher. When your ship grad- 
ually grew from the size of a pinhead to the size of a 
full-grown pea, all of us who could, screamed at the top 
of our voices. We nearly burst our throats screaming. 
And when your Hamburg attained the size of a walnut, 
and we realised we had been sighted, your ship flamed 


200 ATLANTIS 


in my eyes like a huge diamond or ruby, and to me the 
east from which you came shone more brilliantly than 
the west, where the sun was still shining above the hori- 
zon. All of us howled like watch-dogs.” 

“It will always be a miracle to me,” Frederick re- 
sumed, “ that such an evening as this could follow such 
a morning. I have let days slip past, by the hundreds, 
holding no more in them than minutes. But in this one 
day, a whole summer has passed, and a whole winter. 
I feel as if the first violet had followed directly upon 
the first snow.” 

Wilhelm told of how excited the sailors had been in 
Cuxhaven because Catholic priests had boarded the 
Roland. 'Then he mentioned a dream his old mother 
had had the night before he was to sail. A child of hers 
that had been born many years before and had lived 
only a day, appeared to her as a grown-up man and 
warned her not to let him make the trip. 

“She begged me not to go,” he said, “ but, as I am 
an enlightened man, I simply laughed at her for her 
fears.” 

Once launched upon the boundless sea of superstition, 
beloved by sailors, the men went on to recite cases they 
knew of prophetic dreams, of forebodings fulfilled, and 
the appearance of dying or dead men. This suggested 
his friend’s last letter to Frederick. He drew his port- 
folio from his waistcoat pocket, where it had remained 
throughout his perilous trip, and passed the letter 
around. 

They read the passage, “ In the vivid, flashing orgies 
of my nocturnal dreams, you are always tossing in a 
ship on the high seas. Do you intend to make an ocean 
trip?” Of course, it excited not a little astonishment, 
and it was with some thrills that they read: ‘ Should 








ATLANTIS 201 


it be possible for me, after the great moment, to make 
myself noticeable from the Beyond, you will hear from 
me again.” 

Captain Butor asked with an incredulous smile, yet 
eagerly, whether his friend had indeed made himself 
noticeable from the Beyond. : 

“This is what happened to me in a dream. Judge 
for yourselves. I don’t know,” said Frederick, in a 
voice still hoarse and barking. It was unlike him to go 
on and relate, as he did, the dream that had been greatly 
occupying his thoughts, which began with the landing 
in a mystic port and ended with the Toilers of the Light. 
He described his friend, Peter Schmidt, and declared 
that Peter had sent his astral self half way across the 
Atlantic to greet him. He spoke of 1492, of Colum- 
bus’s flag-ship, the Santa Maria, but chiefly of his meet- 
ting with Rasmussen in the form of an old chandler, 
giving a detailed description of the remarkable ship in 
the shop window, the shop itself, and the chirping of the 
goldfinches. He drew out his note-book and read aloud 
what the mysterious chandler had said to him: 

“It was precisely thirteen minutes past one on the 
twenty-fourth of January when I drew my last breath.” 

“ Whether that is true,”? Frederick concluded, “ re- 
mains to be proved. So much is certain —if there is 
anything about this dream that isn’t the illusory work 
of my imagination — my soul grazed the boundaries of 
the world beyond, and I received a hint of the catas- 
trophe to come. As to the Roland, my friend, Peter 
Schmidt, showed me a ship in the harbour with a tre- 
mendous hole in its side and said it had brought in a 
great many people,— which would mean, it had trans- 
ferred them to the world beyond. In regard to my res- 
cue, my disguised friend, Rasmussen, said I should soon 


202 ATLANTIS 


celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of 1492 with 
Peter Schmidt in New York. But dreams are froth and 
foam. I fancy it would not be difficult to explain all 
this rationalistically, from psycho-physiologic causes.” 

Before the little family circle of the Hamburg broke 
up for the night, they touched glasses again with great 
gravity, even solemnity. 


LII 


Freperick awoke the next morning from an eleven 
hours’ sleep, for which he was indebted chiefly to a dose 
of veronal. Doctor Wilhelm had undertaken to do 
whatever was necessary during the night for the sick 
passengers of the Roland and had persuaded Frederick, 
whose more delicate constitution was in the utmost need 
of rest, to take the drug. The sun was shining brightly 
into his tiny cabin. Through the slat door, he heard 
the sound of voices speaking calmly and the cheerful 
clatter of plates and dishes. At first he recalled noth- 
ing of the previous day’s events, and thought he was on 
the fast mail steamer, Roland. But he could not recon- 
cile the change in his cabin with the idea he had formed 
of his room on the Roland. In his bewilderment he 
reached out from bed and knocked on the mahogany 
slats of the door. ‘The next moment Doctor Wilhelm’s 
_ face, lively and refreshed, was bending over him. 

** With the exception of the woman from the steerage, 
all our patients had a good night,” the Roland’s doctor 
said, and went on to give a report of each case. It was 
not until he had nearly ended his account that he noticed 
the difficulty Frederick was having to explain his sur- 
roundings. Wilhelm laughed and recalled some inci- 





ATLANTIS 203 


dents. Frederick started up and clapped his hands to 
his temples. : 

“A void,” he exclaimed. ‘ A whirl of impossible 
things is going round in my brain.” 

Shortly after, he was sitting at breakfast with Doc- 
tor Wilhelm, eating and drinking. And yet not a word 
was said of the sinking of the Roland. | 

Ingigerd Hahlstrém had awakened and fallen asleep 
again. ‘The barber and sailor-nurse, Flitte by name, 
had locked her door. Arthur Stoss was still lying abed 
with his door open and was cracking jokes in the best of 
spirits, while his trusty valet, Bulke, fed him or handed 
him food to take with his feet. From the ring of his 
falsetto voice one would have judged that the horrors 
he had survived were nothing but a series of comic situ- 
ations. : 

* This business,” he said, leaving his original subject 
and dropping a few highly flavoured oaths, ‘is going - 
to cost me one thousand American dollars. I shall not 
be able to keep the first days of my engagement in New 
York.” In good English he cursed the whole German 
Hansa, especially the Hamburg. ‘“ The wretched little 
herring keg! At the utmost it doesn’t make more than 
ten knots an hour.” , 

Fourteen hours of peaceful sleep brought the painter, 
Jacob Fleischmann of Fiirth to his senses. He had his 
breakfast served in bed, rang the call-bell, gave orders, 
and kept the steward dancing attendance on him. ‘The 
others could hear him loudly reiterate again and again ~ 
that though the loss of his oil-paintings, sketches, and 
etchings, which he had intended to sell in America, was 
irreparable and beyond compensation, yet the steamship 
company was unquestionably liable, and as soon as he 
_ reached New York, he would take to haunting the com- 


204 3 ATLANTIS 


pany’s office, until they paid him full damages. They 
were to find out who and what he was. 

Rosa, happy and eager, though with eyes red from 
crying, passed to and fro between her mistress’s cabin 
and the dining-room table, carrying now one thing, now 
another, te Mrs. Liebling, who was still whining re- 
proachfully. It had been agreed to keep Siegfried 
Liebling’s death a secret from her, an easy thing to do 
since she had declared she was not yet strong enough to 
see the children. Yet it was remarkable how the dead 
woman had revived. When Frederick after breakfast 
paid her a professional visit, he found she had only a 
dim recollection of having been unconscious. She had 
had glorious dreams, she said, and when she realised she 
was to be awakened, had felt so regretful that she tried 
to resist the summons back to earthly life, back from 
the wondrous isle, the veritable paradise, in which she 
had been. 

Mrs. Liebling was beautiful. She complained of 
pains, and at Frederick’s bidding bared her body. He 
found it marked with blue spots, the result of the rough 
tossings in the life-boat, which had left him, too, bruised 
and wounded in various places and with frozen toes and 
fingers. 

“My dear Mrs. Liebling,” he said, “ put up with 
your slight discomfort. We were all dead, and we have 
undeservedly been granted a second life.” 

Shortly before ten o’clock, Captain Butor entered the 
dining-room, shook hands with the gentlemen, asked how 
they had slept, and told them that all night the men on 
the bridge had redoubled their vigilance on the chance 
of discovering more survivors of the Roland. Since 
the wind was, still from the northwest, it was possible 


- 


ATLANTIS 205 


that the Hamburg might chance on the wreck, in case 
it had not sunk. 

“As a matter of fact,” he said, “we did sight a 
derelict at one o’clock, but there were absolutely no per- 
sons aboard. It was an older wreck and a sailing vessel, 
not a steamer.” 

* Perhaps it was the Roland’s murderer,” said Doctor 
Wilhelm. 

The captain asked the two physicians to come to the 
chart-room where they and the sailors of the Roland, 
who were already awaiting him, were to give him the 
vouchers he needed for his brief report to be submitted 
to his company’s agent in New York in regard to the 
picking up of the castaways. A sort of audience was 
held, during which nothing new concerning the tremen- 
dous disaster was revealed. 

Pander showed the scrap of paper with the pencilled 
message that Captain von Kessel had asked him to take 
to his ststers. All were greatly moved on reading the 
few hastily scrawled words. The incident revealed 
what a wrench the hearts and nerves of even the seamen 
had undergone. At the mention of this or that person 
or incident, Pander and the three sailors burst into 
hysterical tears. When asked whether they thought the 
Roland would remain above water over the day, all said 
“No.” One of the sailors, who from the first warning 
of danger to the boarding of the Hamburg, had gone 
about his heavy duty with the same grit, the same mat- 
ter-of-course manner, scarcely uttering a word, con- 
cluded each of his statements with: ‘‘ Captain, it was 
like on Judgment Day.” 

At the conclusion of the audience, Frederick felt a 
great need to be alone for a while. “It was like on 


“er 


206 ATLANTIS 


Judgment Day,” followed him. Yes, it was like on 
Judgment Day! The horrors of the cruellest judgment 
could not exceed those amid which the victims of the 
shipwreck had perished. Strange, the evening before, 
Frederick had still been able to laugh; to-day he felt 
as if the gravity of his being were turned to brass and 
had laid itself about him, not like an iron mask, not 
like a leaden cloak, but rather like a heavy metal sar- 
cophagus. 

He knew a man, an architect verging on middle age, 
who had been on the island of Ischia during the last 
great earthquake there. The architect and some very 
dear friends were sitting together over a bottle of wine 
when the calamity was ushered in by the roll of subter- 
ranean thunder. A moment later the ceiling and floors 
burst, and an abyss swallowed up five or six persons, 
men and women, full of hope and joy in life. He him- 
self remained on the brink of the abyss unscathed. 
Though years intervened, there was still not a clod of 
earth, not a rock, no matter how adamantine, on which 
he could set foot with his old confidence; there was no 
wall or ceiling that he did not seem to see falling on his 
head and crushing him. Groping along the walls of 


houses on the street, terror would seize him. Open 


places made him dizzy, and not infrequently a passer- 
by seeing his helplessness would lead him like a blind 
man across the city square. 

Frederick felt that the sinking of the Roland had 
left him with a gloomy heritage, a black compact cloud- 
mass brooding menacingly in the spaces of his soul. 
With all his will, he had to overcome a shudder when 
something like a flash of lightning darted from the 
cloud and illuminated the horror he had witnessed, as if 
it were still present to his eye. 


ATLANTIS 207 


Why had the powers revealed Judgment Day to him, 
not as a vision, but as an actuality? Why had they 
showed such partiality as to let him and a few others 
escape perdition? Was he, the tiny ant, which was 
susceptible of such titanic terrors, important enough to 
assume the guidance of things for himself, to fulfil a 
loftier purpose for good or evil? Had he transgressed? 
Was he deserving of punishment? But that wholesale 
massacre was too fearful, too vast a thing! It was 
ridiculous to attribute to it a pedagogic purpose for the 
discipline of one minute human existence. Indeed, he 
felt how the large generalness of the event had almost 
entirely dislodged everything personal. No! Nothing 
but blind, deaf and dumb powers of destruction had been 
at work. 

Yet, in facing the elemental tragedy of the human 
race, the inexorable gruesomeness of the powers, in 
looking into the eyes of death, he had acquired knowl- 
edge that turned something in his being into the hard- 
ness of the hardest rock. What was the sense of such 
a disaster if the eternal goodness ordained it? And 
where was the power of eternal goodness, if it was in- 
capable of hindering it? Nothing remained but to strip 
oneself bare of all pride and dignity and grovel in the 
dust before the great unknown, a humble, will-less slave, 
completely at its mercy./ 


LHI 


Wuite on the Roland, time had crawled at a snail’s 
pace, the hour hand of the clock on the Hamburg 
travelled twice around its face with surprising rapidity. 
During that interval, the two ladies remained in bed, 


208 ATLANTIS 


though the weather, which was clear and moderate, per- 
mitted being on deck. In Mrs. Liebling the conse- 
quences of the strain manifested themselves in periodic 
attacks of great excitement and fear accompanied by 
violent palpitation; in Ingigerd Hahlstrém, in healthy 
sleepiness, which made the administration of morphine in 
her case unnecessary. Neither of the women developed 
fever. But the sailor whose feet were frozen and the 
woman from the steerage had a high temperature. The 
immigrant in her delirium wanted to jump from bed, 
and, at the physicians’ request, Captain Butor ap- 
pointed one of the well sailors from the Roland and a 
sailor from the Hamburg to relieve each other in keep- 
ing constant watch over her. 

Each time Frederick went to look after the poor 
creature, he felt himself assailed by the temptation to 
save her forever from the moment of awakening. From 
her own lips, while she had still been conscious, he had 
heard of all the relatives she had probably lost on the 
Roland, her husband, three sons, and a daughter — 
ranging from seven to eighteen years of age —a sister 
and her mother. At first her fevered fancy occupied 
itself with the shipwreck, her husband, children, and sis- 
ters. Later she seemed to become a child again, reliving 
her life in her parents’ home. Swallows’ nests, a cow, 
a goat, a meadow, in which there was a haystack roofed 
to keep off the rain, figured as important things. 

* Would that she passed away in those illusions! ” 
thought Frederick. 

Arthur Stoss, transported up-stairs by his faithful 
Bulke, and Jacob Fleischmann strolled about on deck, 
or reclined in the steamer chairs, which even the trad- 
ing vessel possessed. Stoss needed some massaging 
and patching up, and while the physicians were busy 


ATLANTIS 209 


with him, he crowed and cawed in his most jovial man- 
ner: 

“I always say you can’t destroy weeds. 'Tanned 
leather is impervious to salt water. I am like an ant 
which can spend a week under water without dying.” 

Thanks to Rosa’s unwearying care, Ella Liebling 
escaped with nothing but a bad cold. Looking very 
pretty and saucy in her own clothes, which had been 
cleaned and dried, the little maiden pried about in 
every nook and cranny of the vessel. The skipper 
granted her a free pass to his bridge, the engineers to 
the engine-room. She was even admitted into the great 
tube of the propeller-shaft. She was everybody’s pet, 
and all soon became acquainted with her mother’s posi- 
tion in the world and manner of life. 

When Ingigerd, after about fifty hours of rest in 
bed, finally appeared on deck, wrapped in Frederick’s 
overcoat, the passengers and crew fairly celebrated the 
event. The exquisite creature, who had lost her father, 
was regarded with the same masculine pity by all the 
men on board. Pander, the gallant cabin-boy, con- 
verted himself into her shadow. He made a stool for 
her feet from an empty box of smoked sprats, and while 
she sat talking to Frederick, he stood off at a short dis- 
tance ready to receive her orders. Even Flitte, sailor 
and barber and nurse, who was supposed to give all who 
needed him equal attention, ran hither and thither for her 
sake with special zeal. 

The call for Flitte was the one most frequently heard 
on the Hamburg. The undersized little man from 
Brandenburg, whom a love of adventure had changed 
from a barber-surgeon into a sailor, unexpectedly ex- 
perienced a triumph of his personality. Now it was 
Mrs. Liebling who summoned him, now Ingigerd, now 


210 ATLANTIS 


the sailor with the frozen feet, now Fleischmann, now 
Stoss, and even Bulke and Rosa — Rosa, who for sev- 
eral hours during the day made herself useful in the 
contracted little kitchen, which was ruled by a shrewd 
old cook. The physicians, too, had, of course, constant 
use for him; and it was the most natural thing that he 
should become a man of importance in the eyes of even 
his idolised captain, whom, in the ordinary course of 
things it was his duty to shave. He was well aware of 
this, and since, moreover, pity had fanned into a lively 
flame his old inclination for nursing, he outdid himself 
in self-sacrificing deeds for the sick, both by day and 
night. Frederick asked him the same question he had 
asked each member of the Roland’s crew: 

Would you rather be a seaman than anything 
else? ”. 

And Flitte was the first that without hesitation an- 
swered, * Yes.” 


LIV 


Tue unexpected arrival of the little troupe of pe- 
culiar passengers on the Hamburg in mid-ocean pro- 
duced a flutter of excitement in both captain and crew. 
It was a feeling of mingled solemnity and gaiety. For 
the benefit now of the captain, now of the boatswain, or 
the first mate, or the cook, or the engineer, the physi- 
cians had to repeat again and again the account of how 
they had been sighted and rescued. It was a story that 
never grew stale, and from the eagerness with which 
the Hamburg’s crew listened to the oft-told tale, the 
physicians realised that even to those old sea-dogs the 
event was a miracle. None of them, in all the years 





ATLANTIS 211 


they had been sailing the high seas, had ever fished up 
such booty. 

“When Captain Butor had me look, through the spy- 
glasses,” Wendler would say, “ his face was the colour 
of green cheese. And when I thought for a moment 
that I made out a boat and the next second heard the 
captain say, ‘ Look sharp, there are people in it,’ I felt 
my knees getting weak.” 

In telling of his impressions when the boat entered, 
and immediately disappeared from, the field of his spy- 
glasses, the captain invariably declared that he had 
suddenly been beset by a paralysed feeling in his feet, 
and rubbed the glasses, and began to search again. He 
was on the point of leaving the bridge, since he could 
not get another view of that strange little flyspeck on 
the ocean and decided it was an allusion, when it oc- 
curred to him that for reasons of general security he 
had better scan the entire circle of the horizon. This 
time he looked backwards. Instantly he had the Ham- | 
burg stopped and turned, because he had sighted the 
boat a second time and it was now decidedly nearer. 
The first mate, too, on looking through the glasses 
saw it was a boat and that it contained passengers. 
Wendler was called on deck. When he peered through 
the glass, he distinguished white cloths waving. 

“When my boys found out what was doing,” said 
Captain Butor, “ they began to carry on like lunatics. 
I had to use some of my sea-lingo on them. They 
wanted to dive over the railing into the sea, and swim 
to the boat.” 

Ingigerd was lying stretched out in her comfortable 
steamer chair, and Frederick was sitting on a camp- 
stool in front of her. On the Roland, when the sense 


212 ATLANTIS 


of danger began to thicken, a feeling of ownership in 
regard to Ingigerd had taken hold of Frederick and 
never left him. Doctor Wilhelm and, as a result of his 
influence, everybody on the Hamburg looked upon 
Frederick as the romantic rescuer and lover of the lit- 
tle dancer. All were conscious of witnessing the de- 
velopment of a romance especially sanctioned by Divine 
Providence, and looked on with interest and respect. 
Ingigerd’s attitude to Frederick was that of tacit do- 
cility, as if she, the obedient ward, recognised in him 
her natural guardian. 

The air was fresh, the motion of the sea was easy. 
Suddenly, after a long spell of silence, which Frederick 
had imposed upon her, Ingigerd asked: 

“Was it really nothing but chance that brought us 
together on the Roland? ” 

“‘ There is no such thing as chance, or, rather, every- 
thing is chance, Ingigerd,” was his evasive answer. 

Ingigerd was not satisfied, and did not desist until she 
learned the causes and circumstances that had led 
Frederick to board the unfortunate Roland at South- 
ampton. 

“So for my sake,” she said, * you came within a 
hair’s breadth of losing your life. Instead, you saved 
my life.” 

This brief conversation cemented the bond between 
them more firmly. 

In the survivors, with the exception of Frederick and 
Ingigerd, the consciousness of their newly acquired life 
soon assumed exuberant forms. Scarcely two days lay 
between them and the sinking of the Roland, yet these 
very people, who had undergone the brutal terrors of 
that awful event, abandoned themselves to the greatest 
gaiety. Arthur Stoss probably had never before shot 





ATLANTIS 213 


off such an incessant fire of jokes and jibes, and prob- 
ably never before had set such an audience a-laughing 
as the captain, the first mate, the boatswain, Wendler, 
the ship’s cook, Fleischmann, Doctor Wilhelm, and even 
Mrs. Liebling, Rosa, Bulke, and the sailors of the 
Roland and the Hamburg. 

Fleischmann involuntarily and unconsciously danced 
to the tune that Stoss in perfect good humour intention- 
ally piped. It was most amusing when the man with 
black locks, dressed in a black velvet suit saturated with 
salt water, swaggeringly passed judgment upon Adolf 
Menzel, Bockhn, Liebermann, and other celebrated Ger- 
man masters. In expanding his theories of painting, 
he always used his lost treasures as examples. Stoss 
never wearied of getting the caddish genius to describe 
his paintings, the loss of which in Fleischmann’s opinion 
was the worst disaster connected with the sinking of the 
Roland. The form,that Doctor Wilhelm’s teasing of 
Fleischmann took was, when Ingigerd was not present, 
to make him describe his rescue in detail. In the 
artist’s brain, it was an event in an eminent degree 
glorifying to himself. All the sorry incidents had com- 
pletely passed from his mind, including the fact that 
Rosa, Bulke and Ingigerd had pulled him out of the 
waves howling likea wet poodle. 

The sum at which he estimated the loss of his pic- 
tures and which he intended to demand of the steam- 
ship company was a matter of general knowledge, like 
the price of stocks and bonds, within two and a half 
days jumping from eight hundred dollars to six thou- 
sand. ‘There was no telling to what amount it might 
soar. 

Fleischmann had contrived to get some writing pa- 
per on the Hamburg, and industriously set to work to 


Q14 ATLANTIS 


caricature everybody on board. Thus, he often be- 
stowed his company unbidden upon Frederick and In- 
gigerd, who had no need of anybody else in the world. 
That would ruffle Frederick’s temper. 

**T am surprised,” he once said to him, by no means 
amiably, “‘ that after so solemn an event, you are capa- 
ble of such superficial trifling.” 

** A strong character!” said Fleischmann, laconically. 

** Don’t you think,” Frederick continued, “ that Miss 
Hahlstrém may be annoyed by your constantly looking 
at her? ” 

“No,” said Fleischmann, ‘‘ I don’t think so.” 

Ingigerd took Fleischmann’s part, thereby heighten- 
ing Frederick’s ill humour. 


LV 


Suortty after, just as Wendler, who was off duty, 
passed by with a chess-board under his arm, Frederick 
was summoned to Mrs. Liebling. Of the two physi- 
cians, he was the one that had inspired her special 
confidence, why, he did not know. 

‘Doctor von Kammacher,” said Doctor Wilhelm, 
with a swift side glance at Ingigerd, “ you’ve cut me 
out again.” 

At least once every twenty minutes Mrs. Liebling 
called for Flitte and at least once every hour Frederick 
von Kammacher had to sit beside her on the edge of her 
bed. Strangely enough, it did not occur to the young 
scientist to take amiss the jokes that Doctor Wilhelm 
and the others aimed at him on that account. He was 
really sorry for the poor woman and was unaffectedly 
ready to be of service to her, 





ATLANTIS 215 


They had not yet informed her of Siegfried’s death, 
but, now that only Ella kept coming to her, a suspicion 
had arisen in her mind. Flitte and Rosa, when she 
begged them to go fetch Siegfried, always returned 
without him, and when pressed, gave as the reason that 
the boy was sick. 

** What is the matter with my dear, sweet Siegfried? ” 
she cried, wringing her hands, when Frederick entered 
her cabin. The next moment she fell back on her pil- 
low and lay rigid, pressing her hands to her eyes. 

“O my God! O my God!” she exclaimed in impo- 
tent denial of the truth.. Without waiting for what 
Frederick had to say, she began to cry quietly, in 
genuine grief. 

On returning to the deck half an hour later, Fred- 
erick found the fat little engineer and Ingigerd playing 
chess together. 

“The painter and I have made Miss Hahlstrém 
laugh three times already,” cried the engineer. 

“1 know where you were, Doctor von Kammacher,” 
Ingigerd said. ‘* Does she know the truth now? ” 

“Yes,” Frederick replied. “I hope she will be 
quieter now.” 

Ingigerd wanted to go down to Mrs. Liebling. 
Tears came to her eyes, and revealed, as with a ray 
of light shining inward, what she refrained from say- 
ing, that she who had lost her father was most fitted 
to share the grief of a mother who through the same 
misfortune had lost her son. Frederick was indignant 
that Ingigerd had been told, and used all his authority 
to prevail upon her not to visit Mrs. Liebling for the 
present. 


216 ATLANTIS 


LVI 


Tuer next day at about noon Doctor Wilhelm and 
Frederick helped Mrs. Liebling on deck. Her appear- 
ance there made a gruesome impression upon those who 
had not seen her since she had been dragged, a lifeless 
corpse, from the boat to the Hamburg. The sailors, 
though most solicitous to read Ingigerd Hahlstrom’s 
wishes from her eyes, even before they were conceived, 
kept at a distance from Mrs. Liebling and cast shy 
glances at her, as if still in doubt whether she was a 
real human being. If the sea gives up its dead, why 
should not little Siegfried emerge from his death cham- 
ber? 

Mrs, Liebling, wrapped in blankets and a coat be- 
longing to the captain, was placed in a comfortable posi- 
tion on the other side of the deck from Ingigerd, because 
she wished to be alone. For a long while she looked 
across the expanse of the quiet sea. Then she said to 
Frederick, whose company she had requested: 

“It’s strange that I feel merely as if I had had a 
dreadful dream — just a dream — that is the strange 
thing. No matter how hard I try, I cannot fully con- 
vince myself, except when I think of Siegfried, that my 
dream reflects an actuality which I experienced.” 

** We mustn’t indulge in vain broodings,” said Fred- 
erick. 

**T know,” she continued without looking at him, “ I 
know I didn’t always do what is right, but if J deserved 
to be punished, Siegfried did not. Why did I escape? ” 
After an interval of silence, she began to speak of her 
past, of conflicts with her husband, who had deceived 
her. Hers had been one of those loveless matches 
which are contracted in the customary business fashion. 





ATLANTIS 217 


She told Frederick that she was an artist by nature, 
Rubinstein, for whom she had played when she was 
eleven years old, having prophesied a great future for 
her. “I don’t know anything about cooking or chil- 
dren. I was always terribly nervous. Still, I love my 
children. If I didn’t, would I have been so obstinate 
in trying to win them from my husband? I pledge you 
my word, Doctor, if I could change places with Sieg- 
fried, you would find me ready at any moment.” 

Frederick made all sorts of consolatory remarks, some 
of which were not wholly superficial; for instance, what 
he said of death and resurrection and the great atone- 
ment that every form of death, even mere sleep, involves. 

“Tf you were a man, I should recommend Goethe. 
I should say to you, ‘ Read over and over the beginning 
of the second part of Faust: ’ 


‘Then the craft of elves propitious 
Hastes to help where help it can.’ 


or the passage beginning: 


‘The fierce convulsions of his heart compose; 
Remove the burning barbs of his remorses, Pf 
And cleanse his being from the suffered woes! 


Doesn’t what we went through give you a sense of ex- 
piation and purification? ” 

“1 feel,’? said the woman who had arisen from the 
dead, “ as if my former life were far, far away, as if, 
since the sinking of the Roland, an impassable moun- 
tain were lying between me and my past. But leave 
me now, Doctor. You are bored. Don’t waste the pre- 
cious time you owe your pretty friend on me.” 

As a matter of fact, Frederick preferred to talk to 
Mrs. Liebling rather than to Ingigerd. If he was 
bored, it was with Ingigerd, not with Mrs. Liebling. 


218 ATLANTIS 


“Oh,” he said, “never mind. Ingigerd Hahlstrém 
always has company. She doesn’t need me.” 

“My mother urged me,” said Mrs. Liebling, “ not to 
take the children, but to leave them with her. Had I 
obeyed, Siegfried would still have been alive. She has 
a perfect right to reproach me severely. And how can 
I face Siegfried’s father? He did what he could to 
keep the children back. He wrote to me and sent 
friends and his attorneys.” 

“With ‘if’? and ‘hadn’t I,’ you can’t undo what 
has been done. The event is too general, too titanic, 
to be thought of in such a way. It is too fearful to 
be considered with reference to a single individual and 
his puny fate. What happened had to happen, whether 
or not we believe in predestination. 'We human beings 
must not have feelings so petty’as to allow mere chance 
to play a réle in this event.” 

Frederick could not make up his mind to speak of 
his dream, in which Rosa figured as jumping from the 
boat with Siegfried in her arms and escaping to the 
white marble quay of the wonderful Columbus port, 
where he had been received by Peter Schmidt and where 
the Santa Maria was slowly crumbling away. Since 
there were things in his dream that gave support to a be- 
lief in predestination relieving the mind of self-blame, 
his telling it might have soothed Mrs. Liebling’s trou- 
bled conscience; but Rosa had remained alive, Siegfried 
alone was dead. Besides, though Frederick was con- 
stantly revolving the dream in his soul and kept recall- 
ing Hamlet’s words, “ There are more things in heaven 
and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philoso- 
phy,” he did not want to strengthen Mrs. Liebling’s 
superstition, which showed itself in a predisposition for 
table-tipping and patience-playing. 


ATLANTIS 219 


On walking to the other side of the deck, after a 
rather prolonged absence, he was greeted with a shout. 

** Hullo, father confessor!” they cried. 

“Come be seated, my saviour,” said Ingigerd, look- 
ing considerably better and brighter than the day be- 
fore. 

Frederick turned slightly pale, but did as he was 
bidden and said in a tone that did not harmonisé with 
the good humour of the group: 

“Mrs. Liebling was Rubinstein’s pupil. a haven’t 
met another woman on this trip to whom it is so well 
worth the while to talk.” / 

** All due respect to you, a matter of taste,” said 
Doctor Wilhelm. 

“Let him alone. My saviour is displeased,” said 
Ingigerd. 
It was evident that occasionally she stood in awe of 


Frederick. 


LVII 


Asie from little tiffs between Ingigerd and Frederick, 
the spirit on board the Hamburg was generally good- 
humoured, even jolly. The weather remained clear, and 
the place of terror already lay eight hundred miles be- 
hind in the ocean. Each minute carried the passengers 
of the Roland farther along in their newly acquired 
lives. ‘The ladies were feasted from the cargo of trop- 
ical fruit in the hold of the vessel, which had a carrying 
capacity of some two thousand register tons. Often the 
men for Ingigerd’s amusement would use the oranges 
for playing ball. The Atlantic Ocean about the Ham- 
burg seemed a very different thing from that awful, 
treacherous sea which had swallowed the Roland. It 


220 ATLANTIS 


lay like a wave-tossing heaven under the steamer, and 
gave it a gentle rocking motion, by no means unpleas- 
ant. ‘There was majesty in the course of even the plain 
little trader, painted black above the water-line and red 
below. Compared with that mechanical marvel, the 
Roland, it was like a comfortable old stage-coach, and 
could be depended upon to make its ten knots an hour 
with a great show of speed. Captain Butor in all seri- 
ousness declared the castaways had brought him good 
luck. ‘The moment they appeared, the old man of the 
sea turned as peaceful and serene as an octogenarian 
English rector. 

*“* Yes,”’ said Stoss, * but your old English rector first 
filled his belly with a few hecatombs of human lives. 
Stop, look, listen! Don’t be too quick to trust him. 
When he’s done assimilating, he’ll have a still better 
appetite.” | 

Up to the very end of the trip, though there was a 
corpse on board and the woman from the steerage was 
still very sick, the atmosphere on the Hamburg lost none 
of its festal character. The bridge was free territory. 
Ingigerd was usually to be seen there in the daytime 
playing chess with Wendler, or looking on while Fred- 
erick won one game after the other from the engineer. 
Naturally enough, the entire crew, by no means exclusive 
of Captain Butor, felt profound satisfaction because of 
the booty they had recovered on the high seas, each 
wearing an air of evident pride in the catch. Had the 
exalted feelings that swelled the hearts of all on board 
the gallant freight coach, the Hamburg, been trans- 
ferred into od-rays, the steamer would have sailed up 
New York Harbour surrounded, even at high noon, by 
an aureole of its own radiance. 

There was betting as to the number of the pilot-boat 


ATLANTIS 221 


that would come to meet the Hamburg, when suddenly it 
appeared hard by, with the number “ 25 ” decipherable 
on its sail. Arthur Stoss had won. Almost choking 
with laughter, he raked in a considerable sum, and 
Jacob Fleischmann envied him with comically obvious 
greed. 

The close companionship with his fellow-passengers 
on the small steamer, the compulsion he was under to 
listen to their jokes and to the superficial, reiterated 
tale of the disaster made Frederick inwardly impatient. 
Unlike the others, he had not yet recovered his old rela- 
tion to life. His soul was numbed. He had lost his 
feeling for the past, his feeling for the future, even his 
passion for Ingigerd. 'The moment of the catastrophe 
seemed to have snapped all the threads that bound him 
to the events, men, and things of his former life. When- 
ever he looked upon Ingigerd, he felt an oppressive con- 
sciousness of responsibility. In these days it almost 
seemed as if the girl in her predominatingly soft, serious 
mood were awaiting the declaration of his love. 

* You all want to have fun with me,” she once said, 
“but nobody wants anything serious of me.” 

Frederick did not understand himself. Hahlstrém 
was no longer living, Achleitner had had to pay the pen- 
alty of his undignified, dog-like love, and the girl, shaken 
and refined to the depths of her being, was wax in his 
hands. Often he would look at her to find that her eyes 
had been fixed upon him in a long, grave, meditative 
gaze. ‘Then he would seem to himself a very sorry sort 
of person, and was compelled to admit that he who had 
once wished to overwhelm the girl with the infinite riches 
of a passionately loving soul, was a bankrupt, groping 
with empty hands in empty pockets. He ought to 
speak, ought to open the sluices on the other side of 


222 ATLANTIS 


which the flood of his passionate love must have gath- 
ered and risen high; but all the waters had trickled 
away, all the sources had dried up. To mask the aridity 
of his soul, he adopted his old method of a curt, dicta- 
torial manner. 


LVIII 


Ir was the fifth of February, about thirteen days after 
the Roland had left Bremen, and twelve after Frederick 
had boarded the Roland at the Needles in the Channel, 
when the pilot took the guidance of the Hamburg. 
Compared with the length of the .Fiirst Bismarck’s 
record-making passage, this was an extremely long 
time. But how inconceivably brief it seemed to him 
when he recalled all he had experienced in that period, 
both in his waking and sleeping hours. On the Ham- 
burg, he no longer dreamed at night. A mighty blast 
had swept his soul clean and denuded it of all images. 

Shortly before ten o’clock in the morning of the sixth 
of February, Captain Butor, standing back of Ella 
Liebling, who was sitting under the telescope merrily 
kicking her thin legs, spied land. It was a tremendously 
stirring moment when the news was carried to the pas- 
sengers. The steward that called it into Frederick’s 
cabin and the next instant disappeared little realised 
how his brief announcement, “ Land!” affected the 
stranger. Frederick closed the door, shaken by great, 
hollow, toneless sobs coming from the depths of his 
being. 

* Such is life,”? went through his heart. ‘“ Did not 
a steward on a gloomy, horrid night call ‘ Danger!’ 
into my cabin, like the shouting of a death sentence into 


the cell of a poor sinner by both the judge and the hang- 


ATLANTIS 223 


man? And now comes the peaceful piping of the shep- 
herd’s reed, while the thunder is still rolling.” It was 
not until his sobbing ceased that he felt a thrill of bliss, 
as if life were again drawing near in triumph. A flash 
of feeling set him afire, as when a vast army approaches 
with music playing and banners flying, an army of in- 
vincible brethren, among whom he is safe at home again. 
Never before had life come rolling toward him in waves 
so strong or colours so shining. One must have been 
cast very, very deep down in darkness and confusion to 
learn that there is no more glorious sun in all God’s 
heavens than the sun that shines upon our earth. 

The other passengers from the Roland were each in 
his own way affected by the call of “ Land!” Mrs. 
Liebling was heard to cry for Rosa and Flitte. 

“ By Jove, you rascal,” said Arthur Stoss to his faith- 
ful Bulke, “ by Jove, we’ll feel the land under our soles 
again after all.” 

Doctor Wilhelm peeped into Frederick’s cabin. 

“ Congratulate you, Doctor von Kammacher,” he 
said. ‘* The land of Christopher Columbus and Amer- 
igo Vespucci has been sighted. We enjoy the advan- 
tage of having no trunks to pack.” 

Suddenly the fat little engineer, Mr. Wendler, was 
peering over Doctor Wilhelm’s shoulder. 

“ Doctor,” he cried, wringing his hands with a comic 
air of helplessness, “you must come right on deck. 
Your ward is crying her eyes out.” He referred, of 
course, to Ingigerd. 

She was still crying when Frederick reached deck. 
His attempts at consolation did not touch her. He had 
never before seen her cry, and the state she was in, so 
like the one from which he himself had scarcely emerged, 
aroused his pity and sympathy, which, however, were 


224 ATLANTIS 


rather of a paternal sort, untinged by his former pas- 
sion. 

“TI am not to blame,” she suddenly said, “ that my 
father lost his life. I am not even responsible for Mr. 
Achleitner. I did my best to dissuade him from mak- 
ing the trip.” 

Frederick stroked Ingigerd’s hand. 

** All due respect to Achleitner, but if I mourn single 
victims of that fearful night, I first think of the heroes 
of the Roland, Captain von Kessel, his mate, Von Halm, 
and all those picked braves who really died like great 
men fulfilling their duty. ‘They are a loss to the world. 
At the first sight of them, I, in my innocence, actually 

* believed the Lord would never permit their destruction.” 


LIX 


Tur Hamburg had left behind the vast solitude of the 
ocean, broken only at long intervals by single far-off 
ships, and was already making its way through waters 
lively with a large number of steamers and sailing craft, 
leaving, and making for, the port. Now the lighthouse 
at Sandy Hook was visible. 

Though Ingigerd as well as Frederick could not still 
the fluttering of their shaken souls, they were fascinated 
by the changing pictures of the entrance to the harbour. 
It was an amazing spectacle. Surprise followed sur- 
prise. Each second brought a new sensation. 

A gigantic White Star liner came gliding toward them 
slowly, to the accompaniment of its brass band. It was 
starting out on the passage that the Hamburg was just 
concluding. Passengers swarmed like ants on the ma- 
jestic vessel’s decks, giving an impression of gaiety and 


RSS ee ClO _—- Sm 


ATLANTIS 225 


festivity. What knew they of the thing awaiting them, 
perhaps, out there on the ocean? When they looked 
down upon the little Hamburg, with its few passengers 
on deck, they had not the least inkling of the greatness, 
the fearfulness of the event of which thos: few puny 
persons were the sole surviving witnesses. 

The emotion that filled the Roland’s passengers with 
restlessness and excited them as with fire and tears when 
the Hamburg entered New York Harbour and steamed 
up through the Lower Bay toward the Narrows, was 
both a farewell to home and to the dangers of the sea 
and a greeting to solid land, to a stable human civilisa- 
tion. This was the known, the usual, the mother’s lap 
from which they had sprung and in which they had 
grown until the time came for them to start out upon 
their spiritual life’s journey. It was also that without 
which the individual even to-day is helpless against the 
powers of nature. 

Thus, they experienced a sort of home-coming, min- 
gled with a peculiar dream-like feeling, that they were 
arriving on a strange planet, after having been ferried 
across Stygian currents on a Charon’s raft. Out there, 
on the ocean and over the ocean, hovered a gruesomeness 
of solitudes, in which the human being, himself seeing 
everything, remains unseen, unknown, forgotten by God 
and the world. ‘To be happy in his heated, clustered 
ant nests, man can and must forget the murderous in 
those watery transitional realms — man, that insect- 
like being whose sense organs and intellect are capaci- 
tated for the knowledge of his vast isolation in the world, 
but for nothing beyond that knowledge. 

Sailing vessels passed one another, steamers blew 
their whistles, flocks of gulls swooped down on the water 
for fish, or darted hither and thither in the fresh breeze. 


226 ATLANTIS 


Another great ocean greyhound, of the Hamburg- 
American line, neared them at Norton Point. The huge 
structure was propelled forward quietly and surely, as 
by some mysterious force. The gong summoning the 
passengers from the promenade deck to the dining-room 
could be distinctly heard. 

“* At this moment,” said Frederick, drawing his watch 
from his pocket, “ it is quarter of six in Europe, and 
still dark.” 

Captain Butor exchanged flag signals with the quar- 
antine station. The Hamburg came to a standstill to 
receive health officers on board. After prolonged nego- 
tiations, in the course of which the physicians were 
called upon to give detailed information, the sick woman 
from the steerage and, with Mrs. Liebling’s consent, 
Siegfried’s corpse were taken from the Hamburg. 
Frederick saw to it that Mrs. Liebling remained in her 
cabin and was spared the too painful scene. Within 
half an hour, the gallant Hamburg was steaming at full 
speed through the Narrows into the magnificent Upper 
Bay. 

Long before it appears, travellers are always on the 
lookout with spy-glasses for the Statue of Liberty, the 
gift of the French nation, Even Frederick, when he 
beheld the goddess towering up from the water on her 
star-shaped base, did homage to her in his thoughts. 
From the distance at which he saw her, she did not look 
so gigantic. She seemed to be sending him a beautiful 
message, rather of the future than of the present, a mes- 
sage that found its way to his heart and, even in the 
strange mood he was in, expanded his breast. 

“Liberty!” The word may be misused, yet it has 
not lost any of its magic or promise. 


ATLANTIS 227 


LX 


Anp now, suddenly, the world seemed to Frederick to 
have gone mad. ‘The Hamburg was entering the nar- 
row harbour, the basin surrounded by skyscrapers, 
veritable towers of Babel, and alive with numberless 
grotesquely shaped ferry-boats. The scene, perhaps, 
would be a ridiculous monstrosity, were it not so truly 
gigantic. In that crater of life civilisation bellows, 
howls, screeches, roars, thunders, rushes, whizzes and 
whirls. Here is a colony of white ants, whose activity 
is staggering, bewildering, stupefying. It seemed in- 
conceivable that in that intricate, raging chaos, a single 
minute could pass without a collision, or a collapse, or 
a killing. How could one possibly pursue one’s own 
affairs quietly amid that shrieking, that hammering, 
that clanging, that mad uproar? 

During these last moments together, the involuntary 
passengers of the Hamburg had become as one in heart 
and soul. Frederick had not lost his cash in the dis- 
aster, and he persuaded Ingigerd Hahlstrém not to re- 
ject his services during her first days on land. All 
agreed not to lose sight of one another in New York. 
Naturally enough, there had been much lively, genu- 
inely: heartfelt leave-taking and well-wishing for more 
than an hour before the Hamburg was secured to the 
dock. ; 

The dithyrambic noise of the mighty city, where mil- 
lions of men were at work, exercised a renewing, trans- 
forming influence. It was a whirlpool into which one 
was drawn unresistingly. It suffered no pondering, no 
immersion in an unalterable past. Everything in it 
urged and impelled forward. Here was the present, 
nothing but the present, | 


228 ATLANTIS 


Arthur Stoss seemed already to have one foot planted 
on Webster and Forster’s stage. ‘There was much par- 
leying in regard to Ingigerd’s appearance in theatre. 
She and Stoss had been engaged for the same time, 
which was already past. With the uncertainty in her 
heart as to her father’s fate, she said she could not 
possibly dance; while Arthur Stoss declared if he got 
there in time, he would appear for his number that very 
evening. 

*“T’ve already lost two evenings,” he said, “at a 
round five hundred dollars an evening. Besides, I must 
work, I must get among people.” 

He advised Ingigerd for her own advantage to do 
the same, and cited instances of persons who had not 
allowed the greatest griefs to keep them from the ex- 
ercise of their calling. He knew of a scholar, he said, 
who delivered his lecture while his wife was dying, of 
a clown who cracked his jokes on the stage, though 
his wife had eloped with another man and his heart 
was bleeding. 

* That’s our profession,” Stoss continued, “ and not 
only our profession, but everybody’s profession — to do 
his duty, whether with liking or disliking, whether with 
happiness or with anguish in his soul. _ Every man is a 

“tragi-comic clown, although he doesn’t pass for one, per- 
haps, as we do. To me it is a triumph, after what I 
have gone through, to stand on the stage this evening 
without trembling, among three thousand sensation- 
seeking spectators, and shoot the middle out of an ace.” 

By degrees Stoss fell more and more into a lively 
strain of boasting, which, though not disagreeable, ut- 
terly lacked wit. ‘If you haven’t anything better to 
do,” he said, turning to the physicians, “ you might 
come to Webster and Forster’s and see me cut my 


ATLANTIS 229 


capers. Work! Work!”— this was meant for In- 
gigerd —*I very much wish you would make up your 
mind to dance. Work is medicine, work is everything. 
To lament the past is of no use. Besides,” he said, 
turning serious, ‘‘ don’t forget, stocks in us are boom- 
ing. Actors must not reject such an opportunity. 
Just wait and see how we'll be surrounded by reporters 
the moment we set foot on land.” 

“* How so?” said Frederick. ‘ Don’t you suppose 
that all the details of the sinking of the Roland have 
been telegraphed to New York from quarantine? Look 
at those great skyscrapers, that one with the cupola is 
the World building. We have already gone to press, 
and millions of newspapers have spun us out, in the 
greatest detail. ‘The next four or five days there won’t 
be a man or woman in New York who can vie in celebrity 
with the survivors of the Roland.” 

Amid similar talk, the Hamburg reached its pier, and 
leave-taking began in earnest. It was truly remarkable 
to see what emotion suddenly seized these people, who 
at bottom were strangers to one another. Mrs. Liebling 
wept, and Frederick and Doctor Wilhelm had to sub- 
mit to her overflowing kisses of gratitude. Rosa kissed 
Bulke; she kissed Doctor Wilhelm’s and Frederick’s 
hands again and again, amid veritable howls. It goes 
without saying that the ladies also exchanged endear- 
ments. Praises were bestowed upon Flitte; and Cap- 
tain Butor and Wendler, in fact the entire crew of the 
Hamburg, were extolled as brave, noble rescuers. The 
physicians and Stoss called the sailors of the Roland, 
* Our dear comrades! Our heroes! ” 

It was agreed that all should meet again, and Doctor 
Wilhelm made an appointment with Captain Butor, 
Wendler, and even the tattered painter, Fleischmann, 


230 ATLANTIS 


for noon of the day after next. The place chosen for 
the meeting was the Hoffman House bar. From there, 
they would go together on a jaunt through the city. 

Poor Jacob Fleischmann, the painter, was somewhat 
perplexed by the mad city, and turned rather mealy- 
mouthed. He could not speak English, he had little 
cash, and he had lost his only capital, his paintings. 
He tried delicately, though with evident anxiety, to at- 
tach himself to the men with whom fate had thrown him, 
and they did not withhold the support he sought. 
They agreed to look out for him. Even Arthur Stoss 
proffered his services and good advice. 

** Should you have trouble with the company’s agent,” 
he said, “call on me, and [ll introduce you to my 
friend, the owner of the Staats-Zeitung.” 


PART II 
I 


A ¥rew moments later Frederick felt the solid pier be- 
neath his feet. His brain reeled lightly. The crowd 
on the pier cheered and hurrahed. In that shouting, 
shrieking, roaring, swaying mass of humanity, he and 
Ingigerd, who was clinging to his- arm, seemed ex- 
posed to the danger of another sort of drowning. 
Suddenly he found himself confronted by a little Japan- 
ese, or someone whom at first glance he took to be a 
Japanese, and heard him saying: 

** How d’ye do, Doctor von Kammacher? Don’t you 
know me? How d’ye do, Doctor von Kammacher? 
Don’t you know me?” several times in rapid succes- 
sion. 

Frederick tried to recall the man to his memory. He 
scarcely knew who he himself was, with those cheers 
thundering in his ears, with hands on all sides shaking 
his hands, and newsboys flourishing newspapers behind 
him and above him and under his very nose. 

“Don’t you know me, Doctor von Kammacher? ” the 
Japanese repeated, grinning. 

** By Jove,” cried Frederick, “ now I recognise you. 
You are Willy Snyders. How do you come to be 
here? ” 

While studying several semesters in Breslau, Freder- 
ick had eked out his income by tutoring a boy, a rather 
desperate case, whose father, a furniture manufacturer, 


231 


932 ATLANTIS 


paid handsomely for his son’s private lessons. Freder- 
ick’s pupil turned out to be a good-hearted chap, an 
amusing scapegrace, who soon became his devoted slave. 
It was this scapegrace, now a full-grown man, that 
Frederick recognised in the jolly Japanese. 

“How I come to be here? [I'll explain later,” said 
Willy, his nostrils dilating with the joy of seeing his 
teacher again. “ The first thing is, have you already 
engaged rooms, and shall I slip you past that damned 
lot of reporters? Or do you want to be interviewed? ” 

“For heaven’s sake, no! Not for the world.” 

“Then stick close to me,” shouted Willy. “ A cab 
is waiting for us, and we’ll drive straight to our folks.” 

Frederick introduced Ingigerd. 

“IT must first see this young lady safe to a hotel. 
And even then I can’t leave her entirely alone.” 

Willy instantly took in the situation, but it did not 
change his plans. 

** Miss Hahlstrém can stop with us, too. She will be 
far more comfortable than in a hotel. The only ques- 
tion is, can she put up with Italian cooking? ” 

“T don’t anticipate any difficulties from your maca- 
roni and spaghetti al sugo,” said Frederick, who read 
Ingigerd’s willingness in her eyes. “So I'll follow 
your lead as you followed mine years ago.” 

* All right! Forward, march!” Willy’s joy in his 
booty was patent. 

When they left the pier, they saw Stoss still sur- 
rounded by reporters, working his jaws with incredible 
rapidity, as he discoursed upon himself and the réle he 
had played in the sinking of the Roland. They were 
about to enter their cab after their flight through the 
crowd, when an elderly gentleman, panting breathlessly 
and perspiring, despite the nipping wind, stepped up to 





ATLANTIS 233 


Ingigerd Hahlstrém with, “I beg your pardon, but I 
come from Webster and Forster.’? He took off his hat 
and wiped the inside band with his handkerchief. “I 
was told —I was told —I came in a carriage — a car- 
riage is waiting —”’ He stopped, too exhausted to 
continue. 

“Miss Hahlstrém cannot possibly appear this even- 
ing.” . 

** Oh, Miss Hahlstrém looks very well!” 

** See here,” said Frederick ready to flare up. 

Webster and Forster’s agent put his hat back on his 
bald pate. 

“It would be the greatest mistake if Miss Hahl- 
strém were not to dance to-night,” he said. “I was 
commissioned to provide her with money and anything 
else she needed. There’s my carriage. Rooms have 
already been engaged for her at the Astor.” 

Frederick grew angry. 

“I am a physician,” he snapped, “ and as a physi- 
cian, I tell you Miss Hahlstrém will not dance to-night, 
nor for several nights.” 

* Will you make good to Miss Hahlstrém her finan- 
cial loss? ” 

** What I shall do in regard to that is neither your 
nor Webster and Forster’s business.” 

Frederick thought he had disposed of the matter, 
but the agent became offensive. 

“Who are you, sir? My dealings are with Miss 
Hahlstrém exclusively. What right have you to mix 
in this affair? ” 

“I don’t think I could dance to-night,” Ingigerd 
interposed. | 

** You will lose that feeling as soon as you step on 
the stage. The manager’s wife gave me a letter for 


234 ATLANTIS 


you. Her maid is at the Astor with everything you 
need. She is entirely at your disposal.” 
“Our Petronilla is a jewel, too,” Willy Snyders 
interjected. “If you tell her what you need, Miss 
Hahlstrém, she'll have it for you in five minutes.” 
With the insistence of a seducer, he helped Ingigerd 
into the cab. . 
“Very well, then,” said the agent emphatically, 
** you are breaking a contract, and I warn you of the 
consequences. I will have to ask you for your ad- 
dress.” 

Willy Snyders shouted a number on 107th street. 
The agent jotted it down in his note-book. 

The cab with Ingigerd, Frederick, and Willy in it 
was transported from Hoboken to New York in the 
usual way, jammed in between other carriages and 
trucks on the ferry-boat. A newsboy on the ferry 
handed into the cab a copy of The Sun, with whole 
columns already describing the disaster. ‘The authors 
of the information were probably the health officers and 
Captain Butor. When Willy Snyders began to speak 
of the Roland, Frederick checked him with a nod to- 
ward Ingigerd; but she had of herself noticed the re- 
port in the paper and asked if they had been the first 
to bring the news to New York. 

“The Roland was overdue more than three days,” 
Willy explained. ‘“‘ We were already beginning to be 
alarmed. Finally the passenger list from Bremen was 
published, and soon after your name, too, Doctor von 
Kammacher, appeared in the newspapers, your father 
in the meantime having cabled that you left Paris to 
catch the Roland at Southampton. I never lost faith 
that nothing but the wretched weather was delaying 
you, and I inquired at the steamship company’s of- 





ATLANTIS 235 


fice every day. It was there that I learned of the 
sinking of the Roland and the arrival of the Hamburg 
with the first rescued passengers on board, with you 
among them.” Noticing Ingigerd’s sudden pallor, 
Willy added vivaciously, with apparent conviction, “ A 
lot of others must surely have been rescued.” 

The amount of traffic, as indicated by an endless 
number of ferry-boats, tugs, and steamers of every sort, 
was immense. ‘The ferry-boats, black with people, re- 
sembled floating towers of Babel, above which rose an 
iron something like a pump-handle, seesawing up and 
down with the invisible pistons. 

When the boat lay fast in the slip, there was a great 
thundering as the vehicles all began to move at the 
same time to the accompaniment of a tramping mass 
of humanity. 

“This city,” Frederick thought, “is obsessed by a 
craze for money making.’ ‘The idea was suggested to 
him chiefly by the advertisements staring on all sides, 
those shrill, over-spiced, over-charged asseverations, 
compared with which the same thing in Europe was 
delicate as a violet, innocent as a new-born babe. 
Wherever he turned his eyes, gigantic placards glared 
at him, gigantic letters, gigantic, garishly coloured pic- 
tures, gigantic fingers and hands pointing to something. 
_ Twenty negroes carrying bill-boards, a carriage drawn 
_ by twelve horses harnessed like circus horses passed by. 
It was a shrieking, greedy war of competition, waged 
with every conceivable means, a wild, shameless orgy of 
acquisitiveness, but for that very reason not lacking in 
a certain greatness. There was no hypocrisy about, it. 
It was honest in its outspokenness. 

The cab stopped at a telegraph office, and Frederick 
cabled to his father, “I am safe,,sound, and well; ”? In- 


236 ATLANTIS 


gigerd to her mother in Paris, “I am safe. Papa’s 
fate uncertain.” While Ingigerd was writing, Freder- 
ick took the chance to tell Willy Snyders that she had 
probably lost her father in the wreck. 

Several times newsboys thrust a paper under Freder- 
ick’s nose, calling out the great sensation, “ All about 
the sinking of the Roland! All about the sinking of 
the Roland!” In large, catching headlines he read: 
“<The Roland leaves Bremen. Slight accident compels 
her to return. Roland starts on trip again. Constant 
storms. Dead man on board. Nine hundred drowned. 
Heroic conduct of a servant-gir!. Doctor Frederick 
von Kammacher performs miracles of bravery.” Fred- 
erick started, reflected, but could not recall anything of 
the sort. ‘* Child dies in life-boat. Captain Butor of 
the Hamburg sights castaways. Report of survivors. 
Arthur Stoss, champion armless marksman, helped into 
life-boat by faithful valet,” and so on. It was an in- 
valuable supply of fresh, sensational, gratuitously ob- 
tained material, to be served for a week in generous 
portions to readers in both the old and the new worlds. 

The cab rolled up Broadway, that main thoroughfare 
of New York stretching along for miles, with two ap- 
parently unbroken chains of street-cars moving by each 
other. -At that time the cars were propelled by an end- 
less cable travelling in'a conduit under the roadway. 
The traffic all along Broadway was enormous, and the 
contrast was the more surprising when the cab, after 
traversing another lively street, turned into a deserted- 
looking side street, where almost country-like quiet pre- 
vailed. 

The cab came to a halt, and Willy Snyders helped In- 
gigerd out. The travellers found themselves in front 
of a low one-family house with a flight of outside steps, 


ATLANTIS 237 


differing in no wise from the other houses on the block, 
which were all built on the same plan, of exactly the 
same height, of exactly the same width, and with abso- 
lute similarity of detail. Frederick had observed such 
architectural monotony only in workingmen’s houses in 
Germany, while here it was the mark of a fairly aristo- 
cratic section. 

Twilight had already fallen when Frederick and In- 
gigerd at length found privacy in their rooms. The 
rooms, plainly furnished and scrupulously clean, were 
lighted by electricity and heated from a furnace in the 
cellar; and the floors were not laid with wood, but paved 
with red bricks. Petronilla, the old Italian house- 
keeper, took Ingigerd in charge, looking. after the 
smallest of her wants with touching motherliness. The 
two said what was necessary to say in a mixture of 
Italian and English. After showing Ingigerd to her 
room and seeing that she was provided with everything, 
Petronilla stepped out into the hall to call a maid, who 
was working in another part of the house. Frederick 
heard her, and put his head out of the door to inquire 
after Ingigerd. 

“The signorina dropped on the couch without un- 
dressing and fell right asleep,” she said. 

Frederick feeling somewhat uneasy went with Petron- 
illa to look after Ingigerd, and found that she had 
merely succumbed to a leaden sleep. Her constitution, 
after weeks of over-exertion and abuse, was asserting 
its rights. Petronilla and the maid undressed her and 
put her to bed, all unconscious, though now and then 
opening wide her shimmering sea-green eyes. 


238 ATLANTIS 


II 


Freperick washed and went down-stairs to the base- 
ment with Willy Snyders. Here there was a tidy little 
dining-room with a table set for eight. As in the other 
rooms, the floors were of brick, and the walls half-way 
up were hung with burlap. Where the burlap ended, 
a narrow shelf ran around the entire room, set with 
all sorts of household utensils, chiefly fiaschi of wine 
in straw cases. Like everything else about the place, 
the napery was exquisitely clean. 

Willy in the meantime had in his droll, lively way fully 
informed Frederick of the character and purpose of 
this extremely comfortable house. It was leased by 
a group of German artists, whose main prop was a 
sculptor of twenty-eight by the name of Ritter. Willy 
lauded Ritter as a genius. He had entered upon a 
career in the New World most remarkable for a man of 
his age. Among his patrons were the Astors, the 
Goulds, and the Vanderbilts; and he had received most 
_of the orders for exterior sculpture work on the build- 
ings of the Chicago Exposition. Willy called Ritter 
“a devil of a fellow,”? and praised him for his ‘* smart- 
ness.” , 

In a corner of the dining-room, in the halls and on 
the stairway landings, were reproductions of Ritter’s 
works. Willy extolled them to the skies; Frederick 
honestly. admired them. The large bas-relief in the 
corner of the dining-room represented a group of sing- 
ing boys, for which Ritter, probably at the suggestion of 
his customer, a Vanderbilt or an Astor, had used the 
famous relief of Luca della Robbia as a model. In 
style, nobility and freshness, his work surpassed any- 
thing then being done in Germany, 


ATLANTIS 239 


Another sculptor partaking of the benefits of the 
club-house was a friend of Ritter, who helped him with 
his work. Like Ritter, Lobkowitz was a native Aus- 
trian. The fourth member of the group was Franck, a 
painter from Silesia, an impecunious eccentric, upon 
whose talents his comrades placed an extremely high 
estimate. It was Willy Snyders the kind-hearted who, 
soon after a chance meeting with his fellow-Silesian, 
dragged him from his wretched quarters, not without 
much coaxing, and transferred him to the club-house. 

** Wait and see the way that lunatic Franck is going 
to behave,” said Willy in his peculiar voice, in which 
there was a blending of the guttural and nasal tones of 
American English with the Austrian German accent of 
his friends. ‘“ He snaps like a mad dog. MHe’s enough 
to make you split your sides laughing — that is, if the 
perverse creature comes at all and doesn’t have dinner 
served in his room.” 

As a matter of fact, Franck was the first to enter the 
dining-room. Willy’s tongue kept wagging, while the 
eccentric merely shook hands limply with Frederick and 
said nothing. Though the three were countrymen, 
Franck’s appearance —like Willy, he was wearing 
evening dress — added a touch of embarrassment where 
there had been perfect unconstraint; and though Willy 
had lent Frederick a suit, and a tailor had already been 
ordered, Frederick expressed regret at not being appro- 
priately dressed. 

“Yes, Ritter’s a great stickler for form,” Willy ob- 
served. ‘“ Every evening we have to present the ap- 
pearance of at least attachés to an embassy.” 7 

Petronilla entered and explained in wordy Italian 
that the poor, dear, sweet little signorina had fallen 
asleep in bed and was breathing quietly and regularly. 


240 ATLANTIS 


“ You could shoot off a cannon, bum! bum! outside 
her window, and she wouldn’t wake up,” she said. Then 
holding out a newspaper, she asked whether the gentle- 
men had heard of the sinking of the Roland and the 
few survivors. When Willy, with his dilating nostrils 
and his characteristic half-serious, half-comic expres- 
sion, introduced Frederick as one of those survivors, 
she burst into a noisy laugh, which vastly amused two 
of the three Silesians. When convinced that Willy was 
not teasing, she stared at Frederick speechlessly, burst 
into tears, and kissed his hands. ‘Then she ran out. 

Soon after, Lobkowitz entered, a tall, quiet man. 
He had heard of Frederick’s recent experience, and 
greeted him with simple cordiality. 

** Ritter has just come in his cart,” he said. 

They looked out of the window. Frederick saw an 
elegant two-wheeled dog-cart with a handsome coach- 
man in black livery preparing to drive off, while a 
thoroughbred grey, feeling the tightening of the reins, 
was rearing and plunging in the shafts. 

“The coachman,” said Willy, whose lack of reserve 
and extreme indiscretion his friends accepted good- 
naturedly, “is a ruined officer of the Austrian army. 
He ran away from his gambling debts. I don’t know 
whether he got out of the army or was put out. At 
any rate he is of invaluable service to Ritter. He tells 
him to the dot how he must dress for luncheons and 
dinners, for tennis and golf and riding and driving; 
how to manage a four-in-hand, when to wear a black 
chimney-pot or a grey one, what colour gloves to wear, 
what sort of necktie, what sort of cuff links, what sort 
of stockings. In short, he tells him all the things a 
man has to pay attention to in order to succeed here in 
high life.” 


ATLANTIS 241 


At this point Bonifacius Ritter, whom fortune had 
favoured in America beyond his most extravagant ex- 
pectations, now entered, young, brisk, handsome, ami- 
able as Alcibiades. Frederick was instantly carried 
away by his manner, radiating bonhomie, naiveté, joy 
in life, and simple heartiness. ‘The atmosphere of the 
New World had imparted ease and fire to the flabby 
amiability of the Austrian. 

Dinner was served, and over genuine Italian soup, 
conversation was soon in full swing. Willy Snyders, as 
commissary, poured the wine. It was evident how 
proud he was of Bonifacius Ritter and what satisfac- 
tion it gave him to present his quondam teacher to such 
friends and such a home in this foreign land. The com- 
pany thawed; and by the time the maid in white cap 
and apron had finished serving, the four had all touched 
glasses with Frederick on his and his protégée’s rescue. 
A short pause of embarrassment followed, which Fred- 
erick interpreted as a demand for a statement regard- 
ing himself. His pale scholarly face still showed deep 
traces of the hardships he had undergone. 

“IT came over,” he said, “ to continue some studies 
with a friend which he and I began years ago. You 
know him, Willy. He is Peter Schmidt, the physician, 
in Springfield, Massachusetts.” 

** He’s in Meriden now, an hour’s ride from Spring- 
field.” 

“Yes? ” said Frederick, “I assumed he was still in 
Springfield. But no matter. While I was in Berlin 
and Paris, I conferred with some scientists, friends of 
“mine, before boarding the Roland at Southampton. 
Everybody told me the Roland was one of the best ves- 
sels. ‘To my astonishment, I met the young lady who 
is now enjoying your hospitality. She was going to the 


ed 


242 ATLANTIS 


United States with her father. We were fortunate. 
We got into the life-boat perfectly quietly, before the 
panic broke out, but we had to leave the young lady’s 
father behind. I forgot to say I had already become 
acquainted with Hahlstrém and his daughter in Berlin. 
Thus, fate brought us together, and I consider myself 
responsible for Miss Hahlstrém, both as a physician 
and a human being. She is an artistic wonder. She 
is a dancer.” 

Willy Snyders gave a witty account of the attack 
of Webster and Forster’s agent; and the conversation 
turned on art in general and on American art in par- 
ticular. 

** Millions of dollars annually,” said Bonifacius Rit- 
ter, “ are spent upon all sorts of art objects, an enor- 
mous sum on paintings alone. At the same time, there 
is a class of persons here of Puritanic descent to whom 
any kind of art is the abomination of the arch-enemy. 
For instance, there is an association of pious pillars of 
society, an association of vandals, invested with certain 
civic rights, whose object is the abolition of filth and 
the maintenance of chastity. To that end it recently 
broke into one of the famous clubs of the New York 
jeunesse dorée and destroyed a number of irreplaceable 
art treasures, masterpieces, among them even a Venus 
by Titian.” 

** And the relation of the amateurs here,” said Lob- 
kowitz, “to their artistic possessions is very funny. 
You should see how they place their paintings. The 
** Crucifixion ” by Munkaczy is displayed in a depart- 
ment store in Philadelphia. The Goulds have Rem- 
brandts in their extremely comfortable bathrooms. Of 
course, I have nothing to say against good pictures 


ATLANTIS 243 


hanging in hotel halls and stairways. The largest bar- 
room in New York has the whole Barbizon school — 
Millets, Courbets, Bastien-Lepages, and Daubignys — 
hanging over the bar.” 

“* My sole reason,” said Franck, “for going there 
every day for my whisky and soda.” 

Ritter, Snyders and Lobkowitz burst out laughing. 

Franck had the looks of a gypsy; so that two more 
un-European types, as Frederick said to himself, than 
he and Willy Snyders were scarcely conceivable. 
Though a year older than Frederick, Franck, small- 
boned and youthfully slim, seemed to be seven or eight 
years younger. He was forever shoving from his eyes 
a pitch-black lock, which promptly fell over his fore- 
head again to the top of his nose. He drank heavily 
and kept smiling. He smiled, while the others laughed — 
as he expounded the relation of art to whisky. 

A sense of security such as he had not experienced 
in years came over Frederick. He had always felt 
drawn to artists. Their conversation, their camara- 
derie never failed to exercise a charm over him. Now 
was added the fact that here, where he had counted 
upon a chilly foreignness and complete isolation, he had 
been ardently expected, had been welcomed with open 
arms by such a circle. In the midst of their merry 
toasting and informal dining, informal despite their 
evening dress, Frederick every now and then asked 
himself whether the awful experiences he had gone 
through had really occurred. Was he actually in New 
York, three thousand miles away from old Europe? 
Was not this his home? Within the past ten years in 
his own country had he ever felt even nearly so com- 
fortable and at home as here? How life came surging 


24:45 ATLANTIS 


toward him! Each minute a new wave rolling to his 
feet — to him who had undeservedly escaped with his 
bare existence from almost universal perdition. 

**T thank you from the depths of my heart, gentle- 
men and countrymen,” he said, “for the hospitality 
you show me. I don’t deserve it.” He raised his 
glass, and they all touched glasses with him. Sud- 
denly, to his own surprise Frederick expanded in a wave 
of frankness, calling himself a shipwrecked man in two 
senses of the word. “TI have gone through much in my 
past; and were not the sinking of the Roland so fear- 
fully tragic, I should feel inclined to look upon it as a 
symbol of my former life. The Old World, the New 
World. I have taken the step across the great pond, 
and already feel something like new life within me. 

“TI don’t know just what I shall do.” He did not 
realise he was contradicting himself. ‘I shall cer- 
tainly not practise medicine or take up my profession 
as a bacteriologist. Possibly I shall write books. 
What sort of books I don’t know. One of the things 
I think of a great deal is the restoration of the Venus 
of Milo’s body. I have already completed in my mind 
a work on Peter Vischer and Adam Krafft. But for all 
I know, I may merely write on the use of artificial 
manure. For I am thinking of buying some land, fell- 
ing trees, and living a retired life, farming and raising 
cattle. Then again, I may write nothing but a sort of 
romance, the romance of a whole life, which may turn 
out to be something like a modern philosophy. In that 
case, I should begin where Schopenhauer left off. I 
mean the sentence that is always going around in my 
head from Welt als Wille und Vorstellung: *‘ Something 
lurks behind our existence which is inaccessible to us 
until we shake off the world.’ ” 


ATLANTIS 245 


The discourse of the young scholar, passing through 
his belated period of storm and stress, was listened to 
respectfully. His reference to artificial manure pro- 
duced a burst of merriment, and when he ended, his 
audience applauded. 

* Shaking off the world, that’s something for Franck, 
Doctor von Kammacher. Tell him, Franck, how you 
came to America,” said Willy. 

“Or about your tramping on foot to Chicago,” said 
Lobkowitz. | 

* Or,” said Ritter, “ your adventure in Boston, when 
two policemen, strangely mistaking your condition for a 
tremendous jag, took you on a drive in the patrol wagon 
to the lock-up.” 

“It’s very good they did,” said Franck, smiling and 
tossing the lock from his forehead. ‘I should certainly 
have cought a cold if they hadn’t.” 

To Frederick’s puzzlement, every one of Franck’s 
utterances was greeted by a shout of laughter. 

“Franck is a genuine genius,” whispered Willy to 
Frederick, while filling a glass with Chianti, ‘‘ and the 
greatest eccentric in the world. Franck,” he cried, 
“didn’t you come to America without a cent of 
money? ” 

“For what does one need money?” Franck re- 
joined, at great leisure, with a naive smile. 

** Didn’t you come over as a stoker? ” 

** Ye-e-es,” said Franck, “I was engaged as a 
stoker.” 

** But you didn’t do any stoking? ” 

“No, I didn’t have the muscle for it.” 

** But what did you do on the ship? ” asked Lobko- 
witz. | 

“I? I sailed on the ocean.” 


246 ATLANTIS 


“Of course. But you were engaged to work. You 
must have done something to earn money.” 

“ T played sixty-six with the first mate.” 

Finally Franck’s story was extracted from him. It 
was by painting the portrait of the head-steward that 
he had lived so handsomely on the steamer and had 
landed on American soil with fifty dollars in his pocket, 
though a day later not a cent of the fifty dollars was 
left. 


* Money’s a nuisance,” said Franck. 


Iil 


Ur to this point a wholesome-looking waitress, in 
white cap and apron, had been serving. Now the 
Italian cook himself, Simone Brambilla, came in to bring 
on the dessert and cheese and inquire whether the din- 
ner had been to the gentlemen’s taste. The familiarity 
between masters and cook, who spoke Italian together, 
testified to the best relations between them. This little 
fragment of the artists’ Italy in America enlivened them 
all, bringing back memories of the days they had spent 
in Italy, the days that signify the heyday of their youth 
to all German scholars and artists. 

** Now then, strike up a tune, my boy!” Willy sud- 
denly ordered the cook, “Signor Simone Brambilla, 
you will please perform for us now! And cantare. 
Understand? Ma forte not too mezza voce!” He 
took a mandolin from the sideboard and pressed it into 
the chef’s arms. 

** Signor Guglielmo é sempre buffo,” said the cook. 

“ That’s it — buffo, buffo,”’ cried Franck, striking the 
table with his fist, His smile had already turned some- 


ATLANTIS 247 


what idiotic, and he seemed to think “‘ buffo” meant “ to 
sing.” 

** Cosa vuole sentire? ” asked Brambilla. 

*“* Addio mia bella Napoli,’”’ suggested Willy, “ or 
anything you like, Mr. Brambilla.” 

What does ‘ like’ mean? ” asked Franck. “I have 
heard the word so often.” 

** Would you believe,” Willy said to Frederick, “ that 
that ox has been here over a year and doesn’t know a 
word of English? ” 

“** Deutschland, Deutschland iiber alles!’” Franck 
began to sing. 

** Goodness gracious!”? said Willy. ‘ His toothache 
has begun to bother him again.” 

“*Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten,’” sang 
Franck. 

“But I do!” cried Willy. ‘“* Silentium! When 
Franck begins to sing and Lobkowitz to. yawn and Rit- 
ter empties his first glass on the table-cloth, we'll soon 
be lying stretched out under the table.” 

The cook had seated himself decorously and was 
holding the mandolin in position. With his cap of 
white linen and his white linen jacket and apron, he cut 
a droll figure among those correctly dressed young men. 
Willy Snyders poured some vino nero for him into a 
tumbler, and he struck a few notes by way of prelude, 
though hesitating to interrupt Franck and begin. He’ 
kept his face, glowing from the kitchen fire, turned to- 
ward Franck with an expression of courteous waiting 
and politely besought him in Italian to keep on singing. 
Finally, since Franck, instead of answering, arose, gave 
him a comically commanding look, and waved his fork 
like a baton, he began, striking up an accompaniment 
with a catching rhythm, which titillated his auditors’ 


248 ATLANTIS 


nerves. He was an excellent singer and a master-hand 
at playing the mandolin. He gave those well-known 
street-ballads which one hears everywhere in Italy, es- 
pecially in Naples: “ Addio mia bella Napoli,” “ Fu- 
niculi Funicula,” “ L’altro tert a Piedigrotta,” “ Mar- 
gherita di Parete era sarta delle signore,” and also more 
serious songs, such as the languishing “ Ogni sera di 
sotto all’ mio balcone sento cantar una canzon d@ 
amore.” 

The cook’s melodies undoubtedly charmed back his 
home to him, though in colours less glorious and allur- 
ing to himself, perhaps, than to the artists, whether they 
had been in Italy or not. Frederick leaned his head 
back and closed his eyes. The dining-room was filled 
with the fumes of cigars and cigarettes, and the elec- 
tric bulbs shone as in a mist. Frederick’s thoughts 
carried him far, far away. His arm hung at his side 
limply, while a Simon Arzt cigarette burned to a 
stump between his fingers throughout his adven- 
tures, his silver cigarette case had remained safe in his 
pocket. | 

Before his inner vision rose the coasts and blue gulfs 
of Italy, the brown Doric temples of Pastum and the 
cliffs of Amalfi, Sorrento, and Capri. He was standing 
on the Posilipo. He was with Doctor Dorn in the log- 


gia of the zoologic station for deep-sea researches, 
which Hans von Marées had decorated. In Rome, 
Frederick had sat over many a bottle of wine with Hans 
von Marées and Otto, who died while working on the 
Luther Memorial in Berlin. He saw himself in the fa- 
mous Est Est Café in Rome, or visiting the malaria pa- 
tients in the hospital on the Capitol, or promenading in 
the sunshine on Monte Pincio with a deaf and dumb 


sculptor, with whom he then went to an afternoon con- 


ATLANTIS 249 


cert. He had laughed because the artist explained that 
he did not hear the music with his ears, but felt it, or 
rather felt the drum alone, in his belly. 

In that period of his life, Frederick had been under- 
going acrisis. But a little more and his preoccupation 
with Goethe’s “ Italian Journey,” his, intercourse with 
the artists, and the vast number of his impressions of 
sublime art would have turned him aside from science. 
But one day he chanced to meet Mrs. Von Thorn and 
her daughter Angéle. He became engaged, and there 
was no question now of a change of profession. Angéle 
was beautiful, and those days, when he read aloud to 
her chapters from Goethe, or inspired and inspiring pas- 
sages from Winckelmann, or recited Hélderlin, or held 
forth to her on the masterworks in the Vatican, were - 
full of never-to-be-repeated romantic asininity. They 
bought engagement rings of a jeweller on the Corso. 
Where was his ring? He had removed it from his 
finger, and, like all his other possessions, it had gone 
down forever in the cabin of the Roland. 

Frederick again felt that sensation of hot waves rising 
from his breast to his eyes. This time the emotion was a 
soft one, a feeling of reconciliation, of mourning over 
lost illusions. The second epoch of his life, if a second 
epoch were really to develop from this beginning, was 
not like the first, full of innocence and based upon illu- 
sions. Frederick was sorry for himself. He was 
moved almost to tears. For it is an all-too strong 
faith, an all-too certain hope in happiness that finally 
bring disillusionment. ! 

It was in one of the intervals of clapping and ap-— 
plause punctuating the end of each of Brambilla’s songs, 
that Petronilla came in and whispered something to 
Willy Snyders, which caused Willy in turn to whisper 


250 ATLANTIS 


to Frederick, who immediately jumped up and left the 
room. Willy went with him. 

Despite Petronilla’s protestations, a gentleman and a 
stately, rather gorgeously dressed lady had forced their 
way into Ingigerd’s room. Frederick and Willy ar- 
rived just as the lady was trying to wake Ingigerd and 
raise her up in bed. 

“For Heaven’s sake, child,” she kept saying, “ wake 
up for a second.” 

Frederick and Willy recognised Webster and For- 
ster’s agent and immediately expelled him to the hall, 
talking to him in whispers, but none the less energetic- 
ally. They told him a few forceful things, which he 
received with a shrug of his shoulders. When they 
asked the lady by what right she had forced her way in, 
she said she was the proprietor of one of the largest 
New York theatrical agencies and had negotiated the 
contract between Webster and Forster and Ingigerd 
Hahlstrém’s father, who had received a thousand dol- 
lars in advance. 

“Time is money, especially here in New York,” she 
declared. ‘‘ Even if Miss Hahlstrém cannot dance to- 
night, she must begin to think of to-morrow. I should 
be willing to accommodate her, but this is only one of a 
hundred cases that I have to look after. And if Miss 
Hahlstrém is to appear to-morrow, she must go with me 
this very minute to”—she mentioned the Gerson of 
New York — so that they can work on her costume 
over night. The establishment is on Broadway, and a 
cab is waiting in front of the door.” 

The lady said all this in Ingigerd’s room, intention- 
ally refraining from lowering her voice. Several times 
Frederick and Willy interrupted to ask her to moderate 
her tones, 





ATLANTIS 251 


* Miss Hahlstrém will not dance at all,” said Fred- 
erick, finally. 

“Indeed? ” said the agent. “Then she’ll be in- 
volved in a very unpleasant law suit.” 

“ Miss Hahlstrém is a minor,” said Frederick, “ and 
her father, with whom you concluded the contract, prob- 
ably lost his life in the sinking of the Roland.” 

*“‘ And I,” said the agent, “‘ don’t want to lose a thou- 
_ sand dollars for nothing.” 

** Miss Hahlstrém is sick.” 

“Very well, then P’ll send my physician.” 

* IT myself am a physician.” 

** A German physician, I suppose,” she said. ‘ The 
only physicians that count for us are Americans.” 

Perhaps this American woman, equipped with a mas- 
culine intellect, masculine energy, and a masculine voice 
would have put through her will, had not Ingigerd’s 
heavy sleep defied all the noise about her, even the 
shaking to which she had been subjected. At length 
Frederick displayed a degree of determination so un- 
ambiguous that the agent had to recede from her posi- 
tion and temporarily withdraw from the field. Besides, 
Willy hit upon an idea, the far-reaching significance 
of which Frederick did not realise until later. He de- 
clared that if the agent did not desist, he would notify 
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 
since Miss Hahlstrém was not yet seventeen years old. 

** Gentlemen,” said the lady, evidently taken aback 
and coming round a bit, *‘ remember that both Webster 
and Forster and myself have been spending enormous 
sums on advertising for four weeks. I reckoned on a 
tour as far as San Francisco. Now that Miss Hahl- 
strém happens to be one of the survivors of the Roland 
and has lost her father besides, she has become the sen- 


252 ATLANTIS 


sation of the season. If she were to appear now, she 
could return to Europe in three months with fifty thou- 
sand dollars over and above the sum contracted for. 
Would you be responsible to Miss Hahlstrém for such 
an enormous loss? ” | 

After the agent and her escort had left, Willy Snyders 
confirmed what she had said about the amount of ad- 
vertising that had been done. For weeks all the bill- 
boards, all the building scaffoldings, every empty barrel 
where building was going on were covered with posters 
announcing “‘ Mara, or the Spider’s Victim.” Some- 
times they displayed a life-size figure of a dancer, repre- 
sented as almost a child still, a sort of albino with red 
rabbit’s eyes and streaming saffron-yellow hair. A 
spider, with a body the size of a small balloon, was 
‘ crouching behind its web. ‘The poster was by Brown, 
the most talented poster-painter in New York. 

“ You can see those posters everywhere on the streets 
still,” said Willy Snyders. “ That’s why it seems so 
funny to think I always stared at them quite unsuspect- 
ing; and now Miss Ingigerd and you are in this house. 
. Life concocts crazy plots. I assure you, when I looked 
at those posters, I thought of everything else in the 
world but you, Doctor von Kammacher. And little did 
I divine that they would ever be of more significance to 
me than the advertisements of any ordinary vaude- 
ville.” 

When Frederick and Willy returned to the dining- 
room, the chef was gone, and Lobkowitz and Franck 
were engaged in the time-worn dispute, whether Raphael 
or Michael Angelo is the greater. Willy gave a humor- 
ous, though indignant account of the battle of the 
Amazons that had just taken place and how Webster 
and Forster wanted to insist on Miss Hahlstrém’s ap- 


ATLANTIS 253 


pearing that very night. The artists’ chivalry was 
aroused. ‘They declared unanimously that they would 
refuse to give up their lovely ward, even if all New York 
were to come and besiege them. 

Frederick looked at his watch. It was a few minutes 
past ten. The last thing Arthur Stoss had said on 
parting occurred to him, “ At half past ten to the 
dot, I shall be on the boards behind the footlights.” 
Frederick told the artists about Arthur Stoss; and 
Willy Snyders, the man of initiative, proposed that they 
go together to Webster and Forster to see the armless 
actor’s performance. 


IV 


Rirrer lent Frederick one of his evening suits, which 
fitted him to perfection, and within less than half an 
hour the company was sitting in a box at Webster and 
Forster’s. The enormous hall, in which smoking and 
drinking were allowed, was full. Willy estimated that 
there were about four or five thousand people present. 
A number of immense arc-lights shone in the tobacco — 
smoke like frosty, white moons. 

When Frederick and his friends entered, a woman and 
a slim toreador were dancing. 'The music was of an 
exciting nature, and the character of the performance 
and the performer immediately took the artists captive. 
The dance was an eccentric mixture of drollness, in- 
nocence, and wildness. When watching the toreador, 
Frederick felt as if he were in an arena at Seville; when 
watching the girl, as if he were near the Gulf of Cor- 
inth, or on one of the islands of the Cyclades. He 
promptly decided to leave Spain and follow the lovely 
dancer to her home in Greece, where she was his Chloé 


254 ATLANTIS 


and he, her Daphnis. Old shepherds sat tippling in a 
pine grove dedicated to Pan. From the highland 
meadows he looked down upon the far off AZgean Sea 
beating noiselessly against the rocky coast-line. 

The music of the orchestra turned into the piping of 
Pan, while Webster and Forster, the heavy fumes, the 
air vitiated by the exhalations of five thousand people no 
longer existed. ‘The pure breath of spring was rustling 
in the pines. The shepherdess was dancing as she had 
learned to dance from the droll caperings of the goats 
or, by natural inheritance, from great Pan himself. It 
was a dance of young, wild, bubbling joy in life. 

“The origin of all music,” thought Frederick, “ is 
dance and song in one and the same person. The feet 
compel the rhythm that the throat voices; and if the 
dancer herself does not sing, she hears music different 
from the music to which she is dancing, and if she 
dances without an accompaniment, we who behold her 
hear her music nevertheless, The melodies I hear in 
this girl’s dancing are comparable in their bucolic in- 
nocence to the things of the same sort that Mozart, 
Beethoven and Schubert wrote. They have exorcised 
the vulgar muse from this vulgar place, banishing her 
to a remote distance.” 

The dancer was a Spaniard. She made little leaps in 
the air and tossed her head archly, as if for her own 
joy, unconscious both of the audience and the toreador, 
who sometimes picked her up and held her aloft. Her 
dancing was innocent, entirely free from sensuality. 
At the conclusion of her performance, Frederick and his 
friends clapped madly, while the vast audience gave 
very scanty signs of applause. 

*‘ Caviar to the general,” said Frederick. 


When she disappeared in the wings, a lackey in red 


ATLANTIS 255 


livery stepped on the stage and set a number of small 
seats at regular distances from one another. It was not 
until he had left and returned again with a pea-rifle and 
a violin that Frederick recognised the brave private, 
Bulke. The next moment Stoss appeared. A frantic 
outburst of delight, threatening never to end, greeted 
him. He wore a jacket and knee-breeches of black 
velvet, a lace jabot, lace cuffs, black silk stockings, and 
buckled pumps of patent leather. His yellowish hair 
was brushed straight up all around his large head. His 
pale face, with its broad cheek bones and broad flat nose, 
was turned to the audience with a professional smile. 
The applause refused to end, and the armless trunk 
made a moderately profound bow. 

Frederick saw the same man helpless, drenched with 
water, crouching under the seats of the life-boat; and he 
recalled with what murderous determination the sailors, 
Bulke, Doctor Wilhelm, and he himself, as well as the 
women, Rosa, Mrs. Liebling, and Ingigerd, had pre- 
vented the boat from capsizing. What an unreal con- 
trast, between the past and the present! And why was 
Stoss receiving such homage? 

The psychology of certain mass POG ARAM has 
yet to be written. What could the applause have been 
intended to signify? ‘“ We are grateful to God that he 
rescued you. This you have accomplished, you poor 
armless man, that hundreds, though they had two arms, 
’ perished, while you are privileged to appear on the 
stage this evening as if nothing had occurred. We 
must enjoy ourselves; and it is better that you who 
entertain and amuse us with your thousands of tricks 
should have been saved than any Tom, Dick, or Harry. 
Besides we want to reimburse you for all the troubles 
you have been through. What is more, because of your 


256 ATLANTIS 


skill and because of your rescue, you are a lion whose 
worth has increased twofold.” 

The turbulence continued. The man the audience so 
honoured was fairly drowned in a sea of applause. At 
last a man in evening dress stepped from the wings 
and made signs that he wanted to speak. Silence fell, 
and he announced that Arthur Stoss, the world’s cham- 
pion, would say a few words. ‘The next instant Stoss’s 
sharp, clear boyish voice rang through the theatre 
reaching even the hindmost seats. 

Frederick caught expressions here and there, “ My 
dear New Yorkers,’? “hospitable Americans,” “ the 
hospitable shores of America,” ‘ Columbus,” and 
“1492.” He heard Stoss say that on the bill-boards 
one read * 1492,” the year in which modern America 
was born. He distinguished phrases such as “ navigare 
necesse est, vivere non necesse,” “through darkness to 
light,” and soon. Stoss’s speech utterly lacked inspira- 
tion. 

** Noah’s ark,” he said, “ has not yet become super- 
fluous. Two-thirds of the earth’s surface is still cov- 
ered with water. But if a vessel here and there is 
swallowed up in the flood, the ark of humanity cannot 
sink, since God has set his rainbow in the heavens. The 
ocean is the cradle of heroism, it is the unifying, not 
the dividing element.” 

The name of Captain von Kessel resounded in the 
hall. Frederick saw the dead hero tossing about in 
the great black waters under a starless heaven. Above 
the performer’s shrill voice, he heard the captain’s voice 
saying: 

“‘ My brother has a wife and children. He is an en- 
viable man, Doctor von Kammacher.” 

Frederick was roused from his recollections by the 


ATLANTIS Q57 


frantic applause that greeted the conclusion of the bril- 
liant speech. 

_ Arthur Stoss now seated himself on one of the seats, 
and Bulke, the hero and life saver in red livery, laid a 
violin on another and proceeded to draw off his master’s 
shoes. Stoss’s feet were clad in black stockings leaving 
his toes bare. With the toes of his right foot, he took 
the bow and with his left foot, deftly rosined it; a 
spectacle that sent a whisper of astonishment rippling 
through the audience. The orchestra struck up Bach’s 
“ Prelude,’? to which Stoss played Gounod’s “ Ave 
Maria.” The tones he produced were beautiful, and 
the vast crowd was enraptured. Remembering the 
awful disaster, they were transported into a sentimental, 
religious mood. Frederick shuddered with disgust. 
The sinking of the Roland was being exploited. 

It was a relief when Stoss finally took up the pea-rifle. 
Bulke in the part he now played aroused as much ad- 
miration in Frederick and the artists as Stoss, if not 
more. (While his master shot off the rifle, he stood at a 
distance of fifteen feet, with total unconcern holding up 
cards for Stoss to aim at. Stoss put a hole through the 
middle of the card every time. 


Vv 


Wuen he awoke rather late the next morning, Frederick 
was astonished to find everything about him standing 
still. The bed was not pitching, the glasses and water 
basin were not rattling, the floor was not sloping down- 
ward, nor were the walls tumbling on his head. ‘The 
grey light of a cloudy winter day coming through the 
window by no means made an unpleasant or cheerless 
impression, 


258 ATLANTIS 


He rang, and Petronilla appeared. The young lady, 
she said, had awakened, looking well and rosy, and had 
already breakfasted. She handed him a note from 
Willy Snyders, saying exactly where he could be found 
at different times during the forenoon and that he would 
be back for lunch at quarter past twelve. 

Frederick took the second bath he had had within 
twelve or fourteen hours. They had laid out fresh un- 
derwear and several perfectly new suits of Bonifacius 
Ritter’s for him to chose from; and he sat down to 
breakfast a “newborn” man. Petronilla herself 
brought in breakfast. While serving, she told him 
everybody, even all the servants, had gone out. She 
left the room, and returned a few moments later to ask 
if there was anything else he wished. 

** Nothing, thank you.” 

She then requested permission to go out for about an 
hour and a half to purchase various trifles for the 
signorina. Soon after, Frederick saw the excellent 
housekeeper, all muffled up, step from the front door 
into the wet, almost deserted street. 

After he had made this observation, he became un- 
easy, lit a cigarette, screwed his right eye meditatively, 
and bit his lips. The house was empty. For that 
reason his heart was audibly knocking against his ribs. 
Again the fantastic incalculableness of life struck him 
as so remarkable. An occasion, a condition such as this 
he had scarcely hoped to reach in weeks, or even months, 
certainly not in the wild welter of New York. From the 
noise of the steamer and the city, from the rushing and 
roaring of the Atlantic Ocean, he was suddenly plunged 
into the silence of the grave. It affected him with a 
sense of desertion and oblivion. In that city of four 
million inhabitants, each man was strenuously pursuing 


ATLANTIS 259 


his own affairs, or was harnessed into an iron yoke of 
duties, which deafened and blinded him to everything 
beside the path he had to tread. 

Frederick looked at his watch. It was twelve min- 
utes past ten. His uneasiness increased. He was un- 
able to sit still. Each nerve, each cell of his body was 
touched and excited by invisible forces storming upon 
him from all sides. A force of this nature, penetrating 
walls, floors and ceilings, has been called by various 
names. We speak of magnetism, of od, of electricity. 
As for electricity, Frederick just then had a peculiar 
experience of it. He was trying to find composure in 
front of the open fireplace; and whenever he touched 
metal with the tongs, crackling little sparks shot out. 
Everything in the room seemed to be charged. If he 
merely ran his finger tips lightly over the rug before the 
hearth, there were little flashes and reports, like the 
erack of a tiny whip. 

“There they are,” he thought, smiling, ‘‘ the Toilers 
of the Light.” And while he racked his brain to recall 
in what book of fairy tales he had read of those dimin- 
utive elves, the dream he had had on the Roland occurred 
to him. ‘“ Toilers of the Light, what are you doing? ” 
he asked several times, and snatched after the sparks, 
as one snatches after flies in a fit of impatience and 
boredom. It seemed to him that countless numbers of 
those little children of Lucifer were pricking his blood 
like so many dancing stars. Even the air was filled 
with stars. They clogged his breathing. He arose 
and walked out into the hall. 

As he paced up and down there for a while, undecided 
what to do, making as little sound on the bricks as pos- 
sible, he looked into the kitchen, which, like the dining- 
room, was in the basement, and convinced himself that 


260 ATLANTIS 


it was empty. Then he softly ascended the marble 
steps to the next floor, where he tried with all his might 
to check the rise of a passion almost robbing him of his 
senses. In that endeavour he entered the library, a 
room comfortably furnished and well equipped with 
appurtenances for reading and writing. The walls 
were covered with views of ancient Rome and engray- 
ings by Piranesi. But neither the city of the Tiber nor 
the grave of Cecilia Metella, nor the Colosseum, nor 
the Temple of Vesta in Tivoli had the power to engage 
his real attention. 

He was out in the hall again, though hesitating still 
whether to mount to the first story. For a while he 
stood uncertain, clinging with both hands to the wooden 
- post of the balustrade, his head sunk on his hands, and 
his whole body shivering as in a chill. Then he raised 
his head. His eyes were fixed. He seemed a different 
person. 

In that moment Frederick comprehended the passion- 
ate speech of his body, and sanctioned its demands. 
The thing that now came to the fore, despite all the 
grief that had been gathering in him, despite all his 
spiritual conflicts, his bitter mental convictions and 
self-condemnations, despite his repugnance, his horror, 
his compassion and his hesitating and delaying, the thing 
that came to the fore was the suppressed, unsatisfied 
demand of his body. In the silence of the morning in © 
that strange house, it suddenly assumed an elemental, 
indomitable force. It would have overridden the firmest 
will opposing it. But Frederick’s will did not oppose 
it. His clear, firm intention approved it, strengthened 
it, and made-its power invincible. He entered In- 
gigerd’s room, She was sitting at the open fireplace in 


ATLANTIS 261 


a dressing-gown of Petronilla’s purchasing, and was 
drying the masses of her long, light hair. 

“Oh, Doctor. von Kammacher!” she cried in slight 
alarm, and fixed her shimmering sea-green eyes upon the 
man standing there with eyes almost closed, breathing 
heavily, incapable of uttering a word. As by hypnotic 
influence, a helpless look of self-abandonment, of com- 
plete melting away spread over her face. 

The sight of her expression robbed Frederick all the 
more of self-control. At last the time had come to ex- 
tinguish the fires tormenting him in one wild, greedy 
draught. With the hoarse cry of a beast and the fury 
of a man dying of thirst, he plunged deep into the 
slowly, slowly cooling waves of love. x 


VI 


Ir was nearly eleven o’clock when Petronilla returned. 
She was accompanied by an errand boy and a fair- 
haired young man, who was not dressed with the ele- 
gance of the residents of the club-house. His feet were 
heavily shod. While waiting in the hall he waved a wet 
umbrella with his sinewy left hand and a worn felt hat 
with his right hand, whistled very skilfully, and paced 
noisily to and fro in long strides, as if entirely at home 
in the place. 

Petronilla summoned Frederick. With an almost 
passionate outcry of welcome, the one of the two men 
ran up the stairs, two steps at a time, and the other down 
the stairs twice as fast. They kissed and shook hands 
vigorously. | 

Frederick’s early visitor was Peter Schmidt, of whom 


262 ATLANTIS 
he had dreamed on the Roland. He had read Fred- 


erick’s name in the newspaper among the survivors and 
had come from his home in Meriden, several hours’ ride 
from New York, to see his old friend. The paper also 
gave Frederick’s address, the reporters having got hold | 
of it through his connection with the celebrity, Ingigerd 
Hahlstrém. 

The first question Frederick asked after the storm 
of greeting had subsided, was, “ I say, old boy, do you 
believe in telepathy? ” 

“Telepathy? Not a bit,” replied the Friesian, and 
laughed a mighty laugh. “I am scarcely thirty, and 
sound in mind and body. I’m not an idiot. I hope no 
Mr. Slade has turned your head like old Zéllner’s in 
Leipzig. Have you come over to preside at a theosoph- 
ical or spiritualistic meeting? ‘Then good-bye to our 
friendship, old fellow.” 

This was the familiar tone to which the friends were 
accustomed from their university days. It was in- 
finitely refreshing to both to hear it again. No con- 
ventions of any sort divided them. Their relations were 
free of everything that hampers association in later 
years. 

*You’ve been through a thing or two,” his friend 
said, when Frederick confirmed the newspaper account 
of his having witnessed the sinking of the Roland. “I 
believe you’re a married man and have children and are 
living in Germany, and as an avocation are doing scien- 
tific work, while practising medicine as a vocation. You 
were thinking of everything else in the world but a trip 
to America, which never had any charms for you.” 

*‘Isn’t it weird,” said Frederick, “* how one suddenly 
finds oneself in a place one never dreamt of, arriving 
there in ways most unforeseen and at a time most un- 


ATLANTIS 263 


foreseen? And doesn’t it seem as if the life we lived 
eight years ago, which was so choke-full of actuality, of 
real living, had all of a sudden turned to nothing? ” 

Peter Schmidt proposed, since they were both peripa- 
tetic philosophers, to take a walk through the streets 
of New York. Frederick went to consult Ingigerd. 
He found that for the next few hours she would be com- 
pletely taken up with dressmakers. All she said was 
that she hoped to see him again at luncheon. Soon 
after, the two friends were walking along the asphalt 
paths of Central Park, swept clean of snow, under the 
bare, snowy trees between snowy lawns, while the mad 
city around them filled the air with a hundred-tongued 
Dionysiac uproar. 

Though there had been an interruption of eight years 
in their intercourse, they took up the threads of conver- 
sation as if they had parted only half an hour before. 
Within a short time, each had told the other the most 
important facts of their lives during those eight years. 
Frederick for his account of himself had to go back to 
the date of his marriage, the notice of which he had sent 
to Peter Schmidt. Without departing from the truth, 
he related his story with a certain fancifulness, and 
though stating facts, mingled in psychological effects 
and spiritual crises. He did not refrain from telling 
how he had been uprooted and torn this way and that. 
The first and final achievement of his former life, he 
said, was that he had acquired the will to resignation, 
though the tone of his voice, as a result of his morning’s 
experience and his meeting with his best friend, was 
fresh and vigorous, by no means tinged with the drab 
of resignation. | 

Peter Schmidt’s account of himself, in contrast, was 
very brief. All he had to report was that his marriage 


264 ATLANTIS 


had remained childless and his wife, a physician, over- | 
whelmed with a sort of midwife practice, had to fight 
against the climate and was sick with longing for her 
father and mother and her Swiss mountains. 

Nostalgia, Frederick suggested, was probably the 
universal ill from which all Germans in America suffered. 
The Friesian refused to admit it, and Frederick ob- 
served in unchanged form that characteristic in his 
friend which made of him at once the well-informed prac- 
tical man of affairs and the undismayed ideologist. As 
ideologist, he hoped for the best for humanity’s future 
in America, for that reason refusing to admit that a 
large number of the inhabitants of the United States 
had not yet struck root, spiritually speaking, in the land 
of liberty. 

A newsboy with a heavy pack of papers, seeing the 
Germans laughing and talking and gesticulating in the 
Park, which at that hour was not much frequented, came 
toward them, holding out a paper. Peter Schmidt, who 
had always been a great devourer of newspapers, 
bought several. 

“There you are,” he said, unfolding one of the im- 
mense sheets. ‘“ The Roland, the Roland, and still the 
Roland, columns and pages of the Roland.” 

Frederick clutched at his head. 

* Was I really on the Roland? ” he exclaimed. 

“Very much so, it seems,” said Schmidt. ‘“ Here 
you are in black type. ‘ Doctor Frederick von Kam- 
macher performs miracles of bravery.’ And here they 
have a picture of you.” 

The artist of The World had with a few strokes 
dashed off a young man, the replica of a million others 
of his kind, descending into a life-boat on a rope ladder 
from the top deck of a half-submerged steamer and 


ATLANTIS 265 


carrying on his back a young lady wearing nothing but 
a shift. 

“ Did you really do it?”’ asked Peter Schmidt. 

“JT don’t think so,” said Frederick. “I must admit 
the details of the accident are not very clear in my mind 
any more.” Frederick stood still, turned pale, and tried 
to recollect. “I don’t know,” he said, ** what is most 
fearful about such an event, the things that really oc- 
curred, or the fact that one gradually digests it and 
forgets it.” Still standing in the middle of the path, 
he continued: ‘‘ What strikes a man hardest is the 
absurdity of it, the stupid senselessness of it, the super- 
lative brutality. We know nature’s brutality in theory ; 
but to be able to live, we must forget it in its real ex- 
tent, in its gruesome actuality. The most enlightened 
modern man somehow and somewhere in his soul still 
believes in something like an all-beneficent God. But 
such an experience gives that ‘somehow’ and ‘ some- 
where’ an unmerciful drubbing with iron fists.. And I 


have come from the sinking of the Roland with a spot » 


in my soul deaf and dumb and numb. It has not awak- 
ened to life yet. The brutalisation is so extreme that 
while it is still fresh in one’s mind, one would as soon 
express belief in God or man or the future of humanity 
or in a Utopia, or anything else of the sort, as give utter- 
ance to something that one knows to be a vile deception. 
What is the sense of our sentimentalising over man’s 
dignity, his divine destiny, when such fearful, inane in- 
justice is wrought upon innocent persons and cannot be 
undone? ” 

Frederick turned very pale. He was seized by a 
violent attack of nausea. His lids opened wide, his 
eyes popped with a curious expression of horror. He 
trembled slightly, and in some alarm clutched impetu- 


266 ATLANTIS 


ously at his friend’s arm. His brain reeled dully as 
he felt the ground beneath his feet beginning to heave. 

**I have never had anything like this before,” he 
said. “I think the accident has left me with some- 
thing.” 

Peter Schmidt led his friend to a bench, which fortu- 
nately happened to be close by. He saw it was a nerv- 
ous attack. Frederick’s hands turned numb, cold sweat 
broke out on his body, and he suddenly fell over in a 
faint. When he awoke, it took some time for him to 
recognise his surroundings. He said things meant for 
somebody else. He thought he saw his wife, then his 
children, and then his father in full uniform. When 
he regained complete consciousness, he implored his 
friend to keep the incident a secret. Peter Schmidt 
promised he would. 

** My opinion is,” he said, “ that your over-wrought, 
over-taxed nerves are in revolt. They are taking re 
venge and at the same time curing themselves.” 

* Though I have inherited the strongest constitution 
from both my father’s and mother’s sides,” said Fred- 
erick, ‘‘ yet, from last summer on, I have been assailed 
by so many things that I have long been expecting a 
collapse. I know this will not be the last attack. I 
should have cause for rejoicing were the condition not 
to become chronic.” 

* Oh,” said Schmidt, * you may have two or three 
more attacks, but if you live quietly for a few months, 
they may never recur again.” 

In coming out of his swoon Frederick, as he himself 
said, returned from a trip around the world. He had 
travelled through the axis of the earth to the antipodes, 
which actually did hang head downward. 

“I felt as if I had been dead and had come back to 


ATLANTIS 267 


life,’ he said, trying to give his friend a conception of 
the remarkable state through which he had passed. “ It 
was not like being asleep. During the first part of my 
dreams, I felt as if I had been something like a block 
of granite for hundreds of years. On awaking I stood 
in the shadow of the deepest abyss. I saw subterranean 
landscapes, gigantic caves, heavens of stone, enormous 
Adelsberg grottoes. Something lifted me up. The 
only thing I can compare it to was the way a diver must 
feel who slowly, slowly rises to brighter and brighter 
regions from ten thousand feet below the surface of the 
sea. I felt as if I were forcing myself up out of the 
grave. I re-lived my whole conscious life from my 
babyhood up to this very day. You can imagine what 
a medley it was of nurses, military expeditions, cram- 
ming for examinations, confirmations, birthdays, mar- 
riages, sick-beds and death-beds. At the end I went 
through the whole sinking of the Roland again. And 
when you called me, I heard you in spite of my para- 
lysed condition, but I saw you coming out of an inn on 
the quay of the little harbour where Columbus’s flag- 
ship was slowly decaying.” 

* All right, all right, Friedericus Rex,” Peter 
Schmidt soothed him. Friedericus Rex had been Fred- 
erick’s nickname at the university. ‘* Never mind,” 
Peter continued, in a tone clearly revealing that he took 
Frederick’s dreams to be a symptom of his over-wrought 
nerves. “ Don’t think of it, don’t think of anything, 
old man. Let your ganglion cells rest.” 

Frederick assured Peter that he felt like one newly 
arisen to a new world and had rested better than he had 
for years. While they walked on together, Peter 
Schmidt tried to speak only of the mechanical, physi- 
ological causes of the attack. After a while, the friends 


268 ATLANTIS 


regained their old liveliness and began to talk of other 
things. From now on, Peter Schmidt was careful never 
to mention the sinking of the Roland in Frederick’s 
presence. 


VII 


** We are near Ritter’s studio,” Schmidt said. ‘ If you 
like, we might drop in for a while.” 

Frederick agreed, again begging his friend not to 
refer to his nervous attack. 

** It was very astute of me, or of the wire-puller above 
us, to postpone my fit until the very moment you were 
with me,” he said. 

Several times within the next few hours, Schmidt had 
occasion to be struck by Frederick’s evident belief in 
predestination and the superstition that clung to him 
from his crossing of the Atlantic. 

The street that Bonifacius Ritter’s studios were on 
adjoined Central Park. In the first room, a man in a 
round paper cap of his own making was at work taking 
a plaster cast of a man. His cap and his smock and 
trousers, or as much of his trousers as showed from un- 
der his smock and above his slippers, were covered with 
hardened daubs of clay. Death-masks, casts of an- 
tique statues, and anatomical studies of the human body, 
in whole or part, hung on all the walls. When the work- 
man left the room to announce the visitors the model, 
whose upper body, nude to the hips, showed the brawny 
development of an athlete, began to speak to Frederick 
and Peter. 

“What won’t a man do to earn his bit of daily 
bread!” he said. ‘I am from Pirna ”— he pronounced 
it ** Berna,” speaking in a round Saxon dialect —“ and 


ATLANTIS 269 


I tell you, it’s no joke for fellows like me in this damned 
New York. At first I earned my living as a professional 
strong man. Then my boss failed, and I had to give 
up my outfit, my iron bars and my weights and every- 
thing I needed for my job. I can carry twelve hundred 
pounds on my stomach.” 

Ritter sent word asking the gentlemen to come to his 
private studio. ‘They passed through a room in which 
a stately young lady was working without a model at 
an almost completed portrait bust in clay. In the next 
room, three or four marble-cutters were making a great 
noise hammering and chiselling imperturbably, without 
glancing up, at marble blocks of various sizes. From 
this room, a cast-iron circular stairway led up to a nar- 
row skylight studio, where Bonifacius Ritter received 
Frederick and Peter. 

It was a delight merely to behold the young master 
in his slimness and elegance. When the men entered, 
he removed his left hand from the pocket of his light 
smock, tossed away his burning cigarette, and greeted 
them with evident pleasure, blushing like a girl. He 
ushered them into a small room adjoining, lighted by 
a single window of antique stained glass from a French 
church. The low ceiling was coffered in weathered 
oak, and the walls were panelled in wood to a height of 
about six feet. A heavy oak table with benches on 
three sides took up nearly half the length of the room. 
The front of the room was partially blocked up by a 
genuine Nuremberg stove with the precious Delft tiles 
of antique green glaze testifying to the wonderful old 
potter’s art. Willy Snyders had chanced upon the 
beautiful Renaissance piece in a shop near the wharf, 


and had succeeded in buying it for Ritter for only one 
hundred dollars, 


270 : ATLANTIS 


“ Here’s a comfortable corner of the Fatherland,” 
said Ritter. ‘ Willy planned it all, collected all the 
stuff, and attended to the entire furnishing.” 

The university student in Frederick, the thorough 
German in him was surprised and delighted. Though 
the room looked like the cell of a St. Jerome, or, better 
still, the study of an Erasmus, it nevertheless resembled 
in its least details the dim sanctum of a German Wein- 
stube, and all the more so when a young man in a blue 
apron, a stone-cutter’s helper, who might equally well 
have been a wine-cellar keeper, brought in a bottle of 
old Rhine wine and several coloured hock glasses, 

The wonderful poetry of their student days long past 
descended upon the friends. Frederick was still in a 
state of excitement and irrational recklessness. He 
pinned his faith to the moment, ready to stake his yester- 
day and his morrow upon it. The twilight of the room 
brought back memories of youthfully blissful times. He 
had found his old friend again and a new friend of the 
same warmth of temperament and of the same German 
ways, far from the old home. Settling himself snugly 
in the corner by the window, like a man intending to 
take his ease in a restaurant, he touched glasses with 
the others and uttered an exclamation of rapture. 

** You’ll never get me to budge from this corner, Mr. 
Ritter — though,” he added, ‘‘ I should first like to see 
your works.” 

“No hurry about that,” said Ritter gaily, at the same 
time bringing an album bound in pigskin, in which he 
asked Frederick and Schmidt to write their names. 
Then he opened a very practical closet reaching to the 
floor, one of Willy’s contrivances, and took out a carved 
wooden figure, a German Madonna by Till Riemen- 
schneider, ‘The sweet oval of her lovely face was not 


ATLANTIS 271 


so much that of a Madonna as OF a real German Gret- 
chen. 

“Willy Snyders told me,” Ritter explained, “ that 
he bought it from a rascal of a New York customs offi- 
cial, a man of German extraction, whose father had been 
a cabinet-maker in Ochsenfurt. The figure comes from 
the town-hall there and had been taken to the cabinet- 
maker for repair. He substituted another freshly 
painted figure, which the good folk of Ochsenfurt 
greeted with joy as the original greatly beautified and 
rejuvenated. Thus, Willy Snyders. I am not re- 
sponsible for the version,” he concluded laughing. 
* But one thing is certain, it’s a genuine Riemen- 
schneider.” 

The lovely statue by the Wiirzburg master radiated 
a vivid charm, which with the spell of the small room, 
decorated with such tender affection for old memories, 
and the greenish-golden sparkle of the Rhine wine in 
the hock glasses, brought back the German home in all 
its deep-seated force and beauty — a beauty, it is true, 
unintelligible, and therefore non-existent, to the average 
German of to-day. 

“Once I followed up Tillman Riemenschneider’s 
works,” said Ritter. ‘I started at Rothenburg ob der 
Tauber, and went down the valley of the Tauber past 
Kreglingen, and so forth, as far as Wiirzburg. I am 
confident of recognising every piece of his at first glance, 
especially his Madonnas. They have almost completely 
cast off the Gothic, and no other sculptor in wood of his 
time knew so well how to treat the peach bloom of a 
woman’s skin or the charm of a woman’s face and body. 
His women are the pick of the lovely girls of Wiirzburg 
and its surroundings. Each one is adorably beautiful. 
Here is Veit Stoss,”” He took a portfolio from a shelf 


272 ATLANTIS 


filled with portfolios. ‘“ Veit Stoss is superior to Rie- 
menschneider in force of temperamental expression; he 
has capacities in his passions that make him superior, 
or at least equal, to Rembrandt.” Ritter spread before 
them several reproductions of the master, showing the 
seriousness and sorrow inspiring all his works. ‘ Never- 
theless,”? he said, ‘‘ Riemenschneider holds his own 
against him for the very reason that he differs from him 
so absolutely.” 

“ The obstinate resistance of the Gothic,” said Fred- 
erick, ‘the nightmare condition of medieval Christian- 
ity, its fearful revelling in pain, its ardour for suffering 
had to give way to the clear, healthy vision of a bur- 
gher. The atmosphere clears, the garments acquire a 
natural flow of line, erring flesh begins to blossom 
forth —” 

“Tillman Riemenschneider’s portraits are unsur- 
passed by any works, ancient or modern, unsurpassed, 
I say, by the very best,” Ritter reiterated. 

Willy Snyders entered with a great bluster. He had 
come directly from his work in the offices of an interior 
decorating firm. 

**T say, Ritter,” he said, shaking hands with the men, 
‘if you think I’m not thirsty, you’re very much mis- 
taken.” He examined the bottle. “The deuce! 
Without me to help him, the wretch taps one of the 
twenty bottles of Johannisberger with which a Chicago 
pork packer presented him when he made a portrait of 
his humpbacked daughter. Well, now that one is gone, 
another may as well follow. Gentlemen, isn’t this a 
jolly place for little carousals?” Pointing to the 
Madonna from Ochsenfurt-on-the-Main. ‘“ Isn’t she a 
smart little body? She certainly is not by Pappe. I 
myself collect nothing but Japanese works.” The fact 


ATLANTIS 2738 


seemed quite to accord with his appearance. “I’m 
nothing but a poor dog now, but inside of four or five 
years I intend to have the wherewithal, and the collect- 
ing of things Japanese will proceed by electricity. 
There’s no race that can compete with those fellows in 
art. But now I want to tell you something.” He 
turned to Ritter. ‘ With your kind permission, [ll go 
call Lobkowitz and, what is more, I'll call Miss Eva. 
Just now, as I passed through her room, she told me she 
would like to meet the hero of the Roland.’”’ Without 
awaiting an answer, he left the room; and within a few 
moments Lobkowitz, who collaborated with Ritter, and 
Miss Burns, the pupil, appeared. 

After the conventional greetings were over, the little 
Madonna was used as a welcome occasion for starting 
conversation again, which had begun to lag a biton the 
entrance of the newcomers. Willy held the statue, a 
little less than three feet high, against different panels 
of the wall to see how it looked for permanent placing 
there. A spot was finally chosen, and the Madonna was 
fastened to it temporarily. 

The stone-cutter’s helper brought another bottle of 
the heavy, expensive wine, more hock glasses, large 
Delft plates, and a mountain of sandwiches. ‘Though 
Frederick and Peter had declared they must end their 
too lengthy visit, a fresh.wave of conviviality swept over 
the company and held them on. A half hour passed, 
and another half hour, and a whole hour, and still the 
new friends were sitting over their German wine and 
still they were discussing that inexhaustible theme so 
dear to all of them, German art. 

* It is an eternal shame,” said Frederick, ‘* that the 
spirit which created the art of the old Greeks cannot be 
united with that profound German spirit, an entirely 


274 ATLANTIS 


new spirit, which characterises the works of Adam 
Krafft, Veit Stoss, and Peter Vischer.” 

“ Doctor von Kammacher,” Miss Burns asked, * have 
you ever done any work in sculpture?” Miss Burns 
spoke a correct German. Her father was a Dutchman, 
her mother a German, and when her parents settled in 
London, she was only a child of three. 

“Doctor von Kammacher exudes talent at every 
pore,” said Willy, answering in Frederick’s place. “I 
can testify to it.” Willy Snyders’ passion for collect- 
ing had manifested itself while he was still a boy. 
Among his treasures had been some copies of so-called 
“beer gazettes,” humorous sheets got up to be read at 
German students’ merrymaking. The copies in his 
possession contained sketches by seems both of a 
humorous and serious character. 

“IT exude talent?” Frederick exclaimed, blushing. 
“Never, Willy. I beg of you, Miss Burns, don’t be- 
lieve that enthusiast of a schoolboy. If I really have 
talent, those sketches of mine in beer gazettes wouldn’t 
prove it. As a matter of fact, I once did do some work 
in art. Why should I deny that, like all silly children 
of between sixteen and twenty, I dabbled in painting, 
sculpture, and literature? Once my father had to bring 
me to reason because I was all afire for going on the 
stage. Later, I wanted to throw everything to the 
winds to enter politics and revolutionise society by 
working for a party which has never even existed, a Ger- 
man-Social party. I leave you to judge how flighty I 
was and how much talent I had for art. But I love 
art, with a love stronger, I think, now than ever before, 
because everything in the world beside art has become 
problematical to me. I would rather have carved a 


wooden Mary like this ”— indicating the statue by 


ATLANTIS 275 


Riemenschneider —“ than have been Robert Koch and 
Helmholtz rolled into one. Of course, I am speaking 
purely subjectively. I know how great Koch and 
Helmholtz are, and I have the profoundest admiration 
for both.” : 

“See here! See here! What’s the matter with us, 
Friedericus?” cried Peter Schmidt, jumping to his 
feet. Though the artists had great fondness and re- 
spect for Peter Schmidt and went to him for advice, 
yet, whenever he was with them, a violent discussion 
invariably arose whether art or science deserves prece- 
dence in the field of human culture, Peter, of course, 
championing the cause of science. “If you were to 
throw that wooden statue into the fire,” he said, “ it 
would burn like wood. Neither the wood nor the im- 
mortal art infusing it resists fire. And once it burns 
to ashes, it can, of course, be of no significance to the 
world’s progress. The world is full of marvellous gods 
and mothers of God, and so far as I know, they never 
cast a single ray of light into the night of the darkest 
ignorance.” 

“I’m not saying anything against science,” Fred- 
erick declared laughing, “I am merely speaking of a 
very unsettled man’s love of art. So be at ease, Peter.” 

“Tf sculpture really attracts you,” said Miss Burns, 
who had given her exclusive attention to Frederick, 
“why don’t you begin right away to model here under 
Mr. Ritter? Begin to-morrow.” 

* I can’t say I know very much about wood-carving,” 
said Ritter, gaily. ‘ However, I am entirely at Doctor 
von Kammacher’s disposal.” 

*“T cannot leave my little Madonna, my wooden 
Mother of God,” cried Frederick, flushed with the wine, 
rising and holding up his glass, The others followed 


216 ATLANTIS 


his example, laughing; and they drank to the little 
Madonna, each with a secret thought linking Fred- 
erick’s outburst with the girl in the club-house. The 
glasses rang, and Frederick continued rather daringly: 
“IT wish it had been granted me to do with divine in- 
telligence and human hands, as Goethe said, what the 
animal man can and must do with the animal woman.” 
He made a cup of his hands as if to dip up water. “I 
feel my Madonna in the hollow of my hands like a 
homunculus. She is alive there. The palms of my 
hands are warm. ‘They are a golden shell. Conceive 
my Madonna to be a hand’s breadth high, of live ivory, 
and imagine some rosy flecks here and there on her. 
Imagine her robed in the garments that Godiva wore, 
that is, nothing but her hair of flowing sunbeams, and 
so on, and so on.” Frederick began to improvise 
poetry. 
“Said the master: ‘Come into my workshop.’ 

And he took, like unto the Creator, 

God! in both his hands a little image, 

And his heart with mighty throb vibrated. 


‘As thou seest it, once I saw it living.’ 
And so on, and so on. 


Over my hands 
Flowed golden wavelets, 
Cool, sweet lips and — 


T’ll say no more. I'll merely add that I should like 
to carve that Madonna in German linden-wood and give 
her all the colours of life itself, and then die, for all I 
care.” 

Frederick’s enthusiastic outburst was received w.th 
great applause. 

Eva Burns was a beautiful young woman of over 
twenty-five years, imposing and perhaps somewhat mas- 


ATLANTIS Qt 


culine in appearance. Her German was rather hard, 
suggesting to a hypercritical person that her tongue was 
too thick for her mouth, like a parrot’s. Her abundant 
hair was parted in the middle and drawn over her ears. 
Her figure was broad, stately, and perfectly formed. 
While Frederick spoke, and even after he had done 
speaking, she looked at him with searching interest in 
her large, intelligent, meditative eyes. Finally she said: 

** You really ought to try to do it.” 

Eva Burns was one of those knowing, companionable 
women that are always welcome and never disturbing in 
a company of men. Her eyes and Frederick’s eyes met, 
and the young scholar answered her in a tone of mixed 
raillery and gallantry: 

** Miss — Miss —” : 

“ Burns,” Willy helped him, “ Miss Burns from 
Birmingham.” 

“Miss Burns from Birmingham, you said something 
of great significance. On you be the blame if the world 
is impoverished by the loss of a poor physician and en- 
riched by the addition of a poor sculptor.” 

It had grown dark, and they lighted three large can- 
dles of the finest bee’s wax in the chandelier above the 
table. 

**T have no objections,”? Schmidt several times inter- 
jected in the debate, “‘ I have no objections to your try- 
ing to help toward the evolution of sublimer types by 
means of divine intelligence and human hands; for all 
I care, by means of divine intelligence alone, that is, by 
means of reason. The very same, if you will allow it, 
is the object, the ultimate object, of the science of medi- 
cine. A day is coming when artificial selection among 
human beings will be obligatory.” The artists burst 
out laughing, but Schmidt continued unabashed, 


278 ; ATLANTIS 


** And another day, a still more beautiful day, is coming 
when persons like ourselves will be considered like, well, 
let us say at the utmost, the African Bushmen.” 


Viil 


Tuer candles had almost burned to the bottom when the 
little company decided it was time to break up. It was 
a half holiday, the stone-cutters had stopped work 
sooner than usual, and the other rooms were dark and 
deserted. The artists used the stumps of the candles 
to light the company about. In passing through the 
first studio, Lobkowitz partially uncovered pieces meant 
for the Chicago Exposition, colossal plaster casts and 
models in clay representing commerce, manufacture, 
agriculture and the like. ‘They threw enormous shadows 
on the walls and ceiling. 

* You can’t get results in art from large figures,” 
said Ritter, though the statues were full of animation, 
and there was something prepossessing in them. 

** Everything for the anniversary of 1492, everything 
for the Chicago Exposition,” said Willy. “ A Viking 
ship is coming over from Norway. The last descendant 
of Christopher Columbus, a knock-kneed Spaniard, is 
to be passed around for show, a tremendous humbug, 
always an acceptable dish to the Americans. Ritter 
owes this big order to his monkey-like quickness. The 
building commission applied to various sculptors, and 
Ritter sent them sketches for all the statues before the 
other artists had even wet their clay.” 

“T was working in my little studio in Brooklyn,’ 
said Ritter, “ and for forty-eight hours in succession 


I didn’t take my hands out of clay. These figures don’t 


ATLANTIS 219 


bother me in the least. After the Exposition they won’t 
exist except in photographs.” : 

“ That’s the way the Americans are. Please, Ritter, 
do give us a Washington memorial. Perhaps you have 
a Washington memorial ready-made in your waistcoat 
pocket.” 

“No, but by eight thirty-five this evening I will have 
one for you.” 

‘He can do it, too,” said Willy, patting his idol. 
“That is why he fits so well into the United States of 
America.” 

The men now entered Ritter’s real workshop. Here 
there were pieces very different in spirit. While the 
large figures for the Chicago Exposition showed traces 
of commercialism, here everything was thoroughly ar- 
tistic. A companion piece in clay to the bas-relief in 
the club-house, a group of singing girls not yet com- 
pleted, was standing on a heavy scaffolding. It showed 
the same noble qualities that Frederick had observed in 
the relief of the singing boys. Had these works been 
displayed in Germany, they would undoubtedly have 
been epoch-making. A bust of an old woman had some 
of the traits of Donatello. Everything in the room 
testified to the facility with which the youthful master 
created. There was a long decorative frieze in clay, 
putti with goats, dancing fauns, menads, Silenus on his 
donkey, a procession of bacchantic figures celebrating 
the vintage and reproducing all the bacchic joyousness, 
the drunkenness, of men and women vintagers, as they 
cut and trod the grapes and drank the wine. Another . 
uncompleted work in clay was the figure of a middle- 
aged Neptune at a fountain, looking with a jolly smile 
at a huge fish in his hands. There was a completed 
plaster cast of St. George, frankly inspired by its 


280 ATLANTIS 


glorious model, the St. George of Donatello in the 
National Museum in Florence. In all these works, 
Ritter had struck a happy medium between the Greeks 
and Donatello and created a style fully expressing his 
own personality, yet showing permissible dependence 
upon his predecessors. 

The pieces in this room were without exception meant 
for the country residence of an American Cresus, who 
had taken a tremendous fancy to the young sculptor and 
his work and jealously tried to keep his creations from 
straying into another’s possession. He looked upon 
himself as a Medici of the nineteenth century. His 
marble palace in extensive grounds on Long Island had 
already swallowed up millions of dollars, though meant 
as a residence merely for himself, his wife, and his only 
daughter. No one but Ritter was to do the statuary 
and sculptural decorations for his house and garden, 
and he was to have free play. What commissions are 
given in America! Were talents as easy to create in 
“our country” as dollars, there would be a second 
Renaissance even greater than the great Italian Renais- 
sance. 

Frederick was fairly intoxicated by the young man’s 
singular good fortune. What he particularly admired 
was the union of success and merit. When he compared 
the abundance of these works, tossed off apparently as in 
play, and the young man’s cheerful evenness of temper 
with his own torn, distracted existence, a feeling came 
upon him that he had never before had, the feeling that 
he was an outcast, a feeling of discouragement and help- 
less defeat. While the light of the candles glided over 
the creations of the man who had infused form and soul 
into the formless clay, a voice within him kept saying: 

“You have frittered away your existence, you 


ATLANTIS 281 


have wasted your days, you will never retrieve your 
loss.” 

And the voice of envy, of bitter reproach against a 
nameless being asked why he had not been permitted to 
find a similar path and follow it in time. 

Ritter’s life had received a wrench in Europe. Some 
brutal mishap while he was serving in the army had made 
him revolt and later desert. Now, after seven years in 
America, he was compelled to admit that the wrench had 
been indispensable for transplanting the sapling to the 
soil best suited to its growth. In the new surroundings, 
Ritter’s nature developed simply, harmoniously and 
symmetrically, like a tree with plenty of space and sun- 
light. Fate atoned for the lack of military subordina- 
tion in the young prince from genius-land by granting 
him a surplus of superordination. 

Suddenly Ritter said to Frederick: 

“TI understand Toussaint, the Berlin sculptor, was on 
board the Roland.” 

Peter Schmidt had warned the artists in an aside not 
to touch upon the disaster, telling them his friend was 
very nervous and a reference to the accident might have 
a bad effect upon him. But his warning had been for- 
gotten. 

* Poor Toussaint,” Frederick said, “ hoped to find 
mountains of gold here, though, you may say, he was 
nothing but a fancy-cake genius.” 

“* And yet I assure you,” said Lobkowitz, “ there was 
something grand about him as a man. In spite of his 
success, he was always poor. He suffered from having 
a wife who was too fond of society and from having to 
associate with the persons who bestowed favours upon 
him and were so much richer than himself. That dandy- 
ism of his was not natural. Had he reached America, 


282 ATLANTIS 


he would probably have ignored his wife and become 
an entirely different man. All he wanted to do was to 
create, to work. What he loved best was to be perched 
on a scaffolding, with shirt sleeves tucked up, among 
first-rate workmen. Once he said to me, ‘ If you should 
happen to see a mason resembling me in New York, sit- 
ting on the pavement eating his lunch and drinking a 
can of beer, don’t hesitate to believe I am that mason, 
and don’t pity me. Congratulate me.’ ” 

** Another one,” thought Frederick, “ who kept the 
best part of himself hidden beneath the conventional 
foppishness of his time; another one who, like me, may 
always have been trying in vain to reach a definite deci- 
sion between being and seeming.” : 


IX 


Rirter’s dog-cart was waiting in front of the door. 
He suggested that Frederick and Schmidt drive down in 
it to the railroad station, where Schmidt was to get the 
train back to Meriden. ‘The two men squeezed in beside 
the Austrian horse-trainer, valet, or whatever Ritter’s 
coachman was. ‘The trotter went off at a swift gait, and 
again the wild, noisy phantasmagoria of the streets of 
the new Babylon went flashing by Frederick’s eyes. 
Ritter had introduced his coachman as Mr. Boabo. 
He wore a small round hat of brown felt, brown gloves, 
and a short brown jockey’s overcoat. His chin was 
heavy, his nose finely chiselled, and his moustache dark 
and downy. He was a handsome man, or lad, since boy- 
ish naiveté still predominated in his expression. He 
was about the same age as Ritter. While guiding the 
magnificent grey through the medley of cabs, trucks, 


ATLANTIS 283 


and street-cars, he smiled faintly, as if delighted by it 
all. 

Notwithstanding the city’s excesses of architecture 
and engineering, its distinctive characteristic was unim- 
aginativeness. The hurry and bustle, “ business,” the 
chase after the dollar had lashed the technical arts on 
to audacious attempts; for example, the skyscrapers, or 
the elevated railroad, with its unfenced tracks high over- 
head, its trains thundering along incessantly in two 
directions, winding sharply about the corners like an 
illuminated snake, and writhing into streets so narrow 
that a person in one of the upper stories of the houses 
can almost touch the coaches with his hands. 

“Madness, lunacy!” Frederick exclaimed in his 
amazement. 

* Not altogether,” said Schmidt. ‘“ Back of it all is 
a very sane, unscrupulous practicality, riding down 
every obstacle in its way.” 

“It would be hideous were it not so tremendous,” 
Frederick shouted above the din. 

The newsboys were still calling the wreck of the 
Roland. 

“What is that? What was that?” thought Fred- 
erick. “I am wallowing in life. How does that story 
concern me? ” 

A congestion of traffic compelled the grey to come to 
a halt. He champed on his bit, tossed his head, send- 
ing flecks of foam flying from his mouth, and looked 
about as if to try the heart and reins of the young 
_ Austrian officer with his heroic, fiery eyes. During the 
compulsory pause, Frederick had a chance to observe 
how sheafs of newspapers were being consumed by the 
pressing, crushing, jostling throngs. 

“The cow gobbles grass, and New York gobbles news- 


284 ATLANTIS 


papers,” Frederick thought. And heaven be praised! 
In The World that Schmidt bought of a boy, who at 
risk of his life had threaded his way to the cart, there 
were fresh sensations taking precedence of the Roland 
—* Explosion in a Pennsylvania mine. 'Three hundred 
miners cut off.” ‘‘ Fire in a factory in a thirteen-story 
skyscraper. Four hundred working-girls perish in the 
flames.” 

*“* After us the deluge,” said Frederick. ‘‘ Coal is 
dear, wheat is dear, oil is dear, but men are cheap as dirt. 
~ Mr. Boabo, don’t you think our civilisation is a fever 
of a hundred and six degrees? Isn’t New York a mad- 
house? ” 

But the handsome youth, after the fashion of Aus- 
trian officers, put his hand to his cap with inimitable 
grace, while a decided smile, a smile of happiness, played 
about the corners of his mouth, and his answer by no 
means expressed assent. 

“Well, I love life. Here one really lives. When 
there is no war in Europe, then.it is wearisome,” he said, 
- speaking in English, which most clearly proved how dis- 
tant his relation to the old continent was. 

At the station, when they were standing on the plat- 
form beside the train, Schmidt said to Frederick, wring- 
ing his hand impetuously in his German way: 

** Now, old fellow, you must soon come to see me in 
Meriden. Meriden is a small place, and you can re- 
cuperate there better than here.” 

“T’m not altogether a free agent,” Frederick replied 
with a faint, fatalistic smile. 

** Why not?” 

* T have obligations. I am tied down.” 

With the indiscretion of intimacy, Schmidt asked: 

*“ Has it anything to do with the wooden Madonna? ” 


ATLANTIS 985 


“‘ Perhaps it is something of the sort,’”’ Frederick re- 
plied. ‘The poor little thing lost her father, her 
natural protector, and as I had a share in her rescue —” 

*“Then there was a girl in a shift, and a rope lad- 
der!” 

“Yes and no. I’ll tell you more about it some other 
time. Now just take my word for it, there are times 
when all of a sudden in a most surprising way, one finds 
oneself saddled with complete responsibility for a fellow- 
creature.” 

Peter Schmidt laughed. 

** You mean, if a woman steps up to you in a crowded 
city street and asks you to hold her baby a moment, and 
never comes back for her baby? ” 

* T’ll tell you everything some other time.” 

The train with its long, elegantly built coaches began 
to move slowly, though no signal of any sort had been 
given, no whistle or bell or word of command. Without 
the least to-do, it slipped out of the station wholly dis- 
regarded. Peter and Frederick were the only persons 
taking leave of one another in this crowded train bound 
inland. Peter mounted the steps, and again shook 
hands with Frederick. 

** IT hope to see you soon again,” each said to the other 
warmly. 


xX 


Wuewn Frederick returned home, he learned that a num- 
ber of reporters and other persons had been there in- 
quiring for him. Webster and Forster’s agent had 
_ given his address, Frederick deduced upon seeing 
among the reporters’ cards one of Arthur Stoss’s. 
There was also a letter from an impresario, a German 


“> 


286 ATLANTIS 


of the name of Lehmann, who, failing to find Frederick 
in, had left a pencilled note asking whether, and under 
what conditions, Frederick would be prepared to deliver 
a medical lecture in New York, Boston, Chicago, and 
later other cities, in which lecture he was each time to 
touch upon the sinking of the Roland and weave in some 
of his impressions of the event. 

“What else? ” thought Frederick, disgusted, though 
he had to admit that he had actually become famous, 

Through Petronilla he sent word to Ingigerd to ask 
whether it would be agreeable to her to receive him. 
Petronilla returned with the message that Ingigerd 
would see him in a quarter of an hour. “ Signor Pit- 
tore Franck is with her,” the housekeeper added; which 
piece of information sent the blood rushing to Fred- 
erick’s head; and though it had been his intention to 
wash and change his clothes, he scarcely waited for 
Petronilla to conclude her message, and dashed up- 
stairs three steps at a time. He knocked on Ingigerd’s 


door loudly. No one said “Come in.” Nevertheless 


he opened the door and entered and saw the gypsy 
painter sitting at Ingigerd’s side. On the table under 
the electric bulbs, lay a large sheet of paper, on which 
Franck was sketching with a soft pencil what Frederick 
on stepping nearer saw to be hasty designs for costumes. 

“JT said in a quarter of an -hour,” said Ingigerd 


_ slowly, making a wry face. 


“ T’]l come whenever I choose to,” said Frederick. 

Franck, rising without the least air of haste or con- 
fusion, greeted Frederick with perfect cordiality and 
walked to the door. 

“I don’t want to disturb you. Good evening, Doc- 
tor von Kammacher,” he said with a grin betraying some 
delight in Frederick’s annoyance. 


ATLANTIS 287 


“ Rigo!” Ingigerd called after him. “ You prom- 
ised to come again to-morrow morning.” 

** What’s that boy doing in your room, Ingigerd? ” 
Frederick demanded somewhat roughly, in_ evident 
anger. “And ‘Rigo’? What does ‘ Rigo’ mean? 
Are both of you out of your wits? ” 

Though this tone of his must have been new to her, 
it seemed agreeable to her, for she said very humbly: 

** Well, why did you stay away so long? ” 

**T’ll tell you later. But as matters now stand be- 
tween us, I forbid your striking up such friendships. 
If you want to do something for the fellow, present him 
with a comb and a nail brush and a tooth-brush. Be- 
sides, his name isn’t Rigo but Max, and he’s a seedy sort 
of chap, absolutely dependent upon his friends.” 

In his moments of jealousy, it was easy for Ingigerd 
to put Frederick to shame. 

“Tt makes no difference to me,” she said, ** whether 
a man is poor or rich, whether he dresses like a dude 
or a tramp. Rigo intends to paint my portrait, and 
I’m looking forward with pleasure to being his model.” 

** His model? You won’t be his model. I'll see to 
that,” said Frederick. ‘‘ But please explain how you 
hit upon ‘Rigo’? Why do you call him ‘ Rigo’? 
Tell me.” 

‘* His mother was a gypsy, and when he was a child, 
some respectable people took him into their family.” 

“Do you believe that? Franck’s friends say he lies 
every time he opens his mouth.” 

“1’m not a father confessor. He may lie for all I 
care.” 

Frederick did not reply. 

Ingigerd was still sitting at the table. With gentle 
ardour he pressed his lips to her head, loosened the rib- 


288 ATLANTIS 


bon tying her hair at the nape of her neck, and plunged 
his fingers deep into the wave of flowing gold. 

** Where were you?” the girl asked. Frederick told 
her of Peter Schmidt and the exhilarating afternoon in 
Ritter’s studio. 

*T don’t like that sort of thing,” she said. “ How 
can people drink wine? ” 

The thought passed through Frederick’s mind that 
the girl’s remarks were rather flat and failed to echo the 
things he had been telling her. 

About an hour later Frederick asked Willy to help 
him find a boarding house where he and Ingigerd could 
live, or Ingigerd could live alone without his protection. 

“You must realise,” Frederick explained, “ that no 
matter how unprejudiced you and your friends may be, 
it won’t do to let a young lady remain permanently in 
a bachelors’ club-house.” | 

Willy did realise the impropriety of the situation; 
and that very same evening he found an excellent place 
for her with friends on Fifth Avenue. 

The next morning, after the men had left the house, 
Frederick again fell under the spell of a strange excite- 
ment that led him to Ingigerd’s room. ‘This time, how- 
ever, it was not a wave of passion, but a storm of desire 
for self-purification. 

*‘ Ingigerd,” he said, * fate has brought us together. 
I am sure you, too, feel that in spite of all the appalling 
events we underwent, something like predestination was 
at work.” Frederick now told her, as he had fully 
planned to do, the story of his past. It was a complete 
confession. He spoke of his youth and marriage, spoke 
with all possible forbearance and love of his wife. 
“There was no hope for her ever getting well again. 
I have nothing to reproach myself with in regard to 


ATLANTIS 289 


her, except that I was a man merely of good intentions 
and imperfect achievement. But I may not have been 
the right husband for her in so far as I could not give 
her the repose of spirit that she needed and I myself 
lacked. When the collapse finally occurred and other 
misfortunes — they seldom come singly — and in addi- 
tion I suffered disappointments outside my family life, 
I had great difficulty in bearing up. I hate to speak 
of it, but it is the truth — before I saw you, I picked 
up a revolver more than once for a very definite pur- 
pose. Life weighed upon me like lead. It had turned 
stale and tasteless. The sight of you, Ingigerd, and, 
strange to say, the wreck, which I experienced not only 
symbolically but in actuality, taught me to value life 
again. You and bare existence—the two things I 
saved from the wreck. Once more I stand on terra 
firma. I love the soil. I should like to fondle it. But 
I am not yet secure, Ingigerd. I am still sore, without 
and within, you know. You have suffered a loss, I have 
suffered a loss. We have beheld the other side of ex- 
istence, the unforgettable gloom. We have looked into 
the pit. Ingigerd, shall we cling to each other? Will 
you come to a man torn and distracted, lashed by scor- 
pions, to a man who is greedy to-day and surfeited to- 
morrow, to a man who longs for peace and repose, and 
be peace and repose to him? Could you for my sake 
give up all that has until now filled your life, if I for 
your sake leave behind me everything that has wasted 
my existence? Shall we both begin afresh, on a new 
basis, simply and without any false glamour, and live 
and die as plain country persons? I will be tender with 
you, Ingigerd.” Frederick hollowed his hands and 
held them as he had done when speaking of the Ma- 
donna. “I will—” He broke off and cried: “ Say 


290 ATLANTIS 


something! Just tell me the one thing, Ingigerd! 
Can you — can you become my comrade for life? ” 

Ingigerd was standing at the window looking out 
into the fog and tapping the pane with a pencil. 

** Perhaps, Doctor von Kammacher,” she said finally. 

** Perhaps!”? Frederick blazed up. ‘“‘ And Doctor 
von Kammacher! ” 

Ingigerd turned and said quickly: 

“Why do you always fly into such a temper right 
away? How do I know if I am suited to your needs and 
desires? ” 

‘Tt is merely a question of love,” replied Frederick. 

“I like you. Yes, I do like you, but whether my 
feeling for you is love, how can I tell? I always say 
that so far I haven’t loved anything but animals.” _ 

* Animals!” cried Frederick von Kammacher. He 
felt mortally ashamed. Never, it seemed to him, in his 
whole life had he so degraded himself. 


xI 


A Few moments later there was a knock at the door, and 
a man in a long overcoat and brown kid gloves, carry- 
ing a silk hat in his fat hand entered. 

** Excuse me,” he said, “ I presume this is Miss Hahl- 
strom? ” 

“Yes. I am Miss Hahlstrém.” 

“ My name is Lilienfeld — manager of the Cosmo- 
politan Theatre.” He handed Frederick his card, 
which announced that he was also manager of a variety 
theatre and impresario in general. “I obtained your 
address from Mr. Stoss, the armless ‘marksman, you 
know. I heard you had had some unpleasantness with 


— 


ATLANTIS 291 


Webster and Forster, and I said to myself, I must go 
and call on the daughter of a good old friend of mine. 
I knew both your father and mother.” Mr. Lilienfeld, 
in tactfully subdued tones, wound up his rather lengthy 
address with delicate expressions of sympathy and his 
personal sorrow at Hahlstrém’s death. 

Ingigerd being helpless as a child in business matters, 
Frederick had taken it upon himself to represent her, 
and he used the pause in the impresario’s speech to put 
in a word. The man’s personality was by no means 
displeasing to him, and his presence for several reasons 
was highly welcome. 

** Owing to the state of her health, Miss Hahlstrém 
was unable until now to appear in public. I as her 
physician am responsible for her refusal to dance, but 
Webster and Forster used such rough methods of 
coercion both through intermediaries and through the 
mail that Miss Hahlstrém of her own accord decided 
in no circumstances to dance under their management.” 

** Never!” explained Ingigerd. ‘ Absolutely never.” 

‘“* Besides,” Frederick continued, “their terms are 
miserable. We have received letters offering three and 
four times as much.” 

* Exactly what was to be expected,” declared Lilien- 
feld. ‘ Pardon me if I give you a bit of advice. In 
the first place, be perfectly easy in your mind about 
Webster and Forster’s attempts to intimidate you. 
For various reasons the contract with Mr. Hahlstrém is 
legally invalid. It so happens that I have pretty ac- 
curate information regarding the terms of the divorce 
between your father and mother. They themselves told 
me, and what is more, my brother was counsel for your 
father. Your neother was made your legal guardian. 
Your father had no right to make a contract for you. 


292 ATLANTIS 


You ran away. You went with your father because 
you were devoted to him body and soul and the relation 
between you and your mother may not have been quite 
so pleasant. I do not hesitate to say you acted wisely, 
very wisely. Your father’s training has made a great 
artist of you.” 

“Thank you,” Ingigerd laughed, at the mere mem- 
ory of her training involuntarily protesting against her 
artistic education. ‘ For hours at a time, while he sat 
in a chair comfortably smoking his meerschaum, I had 
to dance for him without a stitch of clothing on and per- 
form all sorts of contortions and acrobatic feats on a 
rug. In the afternoon he would play the piano and I 
would have to go through the same thing all over again.” 

** Your father was a positive marvel as a trainer. He 
put two or three international stars on their dancing 
legs, if you will permit the expression. He was the 
dancing master of two worlds and ”—the impresario 
laughed significantly —“ many other interesting things 
besides. But to stick to the matter in hand — if you 
want, your contract with Webster and Forster is null 
and void.” He paused for an instant and began again, 
this time addressing himself more to Frederick. ‘ I do 
not deny that I am a business man — always within the 
limits of gentlemanliness — and I should like to ask you 
a question, Doctor von Kammacher. Is it your inten- 
tion to let Miss Hahlstrém dance at all again, or have 
you and she decided that she is to retire to private 
life? ” 

- “Qh, no,” said Ingigerd very decidedly. 

Frederick felt something like cold iron enter his soul. 
He seemed to himself to be a sword-swallower unable 
immediately to extract the steel from his body. 

** No, we have not,” he, too, said, “ though I for my 


ATLANTIS 293 


part should like Miss Hahlstrém to give up the stage 
because she has a delicate constitution. But she main- 
tains she needs the sensation of it. And when I see the 
offers she receives, I do not know whether I have the 
right to persuade her against her will.” 

“Don’t, Doctor von Kammacher, don’t!’? cried Mr. 
Lilienfeld. ‘‘ Miss Hahlstrém, Doctor von Kam- 
macher, let me take up the cudgels for you against 
Webster and Forster — bloodsuckers, I tell you — and 
they’ve insulted the lady, besides. I assure you, they 
are the source of a lot of vile rumours about her.” 

“ Mention names,” said Frederick, turning white. . 
“‘T shall have no difficulty, I fancy, in finding a second, 
and I hope the same code of honour holds for gentle- 
men here as in Europe.” 

“Tush —tush!” The impresario lifted his fat 
hands in pacification, and it seemed to Frederick as if 
the business man’s round head, set low between his shoul- 
ders, were trying to make signs to him, as if he were 
winking his eyes furtively and were suppressing a broad 
smile, unexpectedly upsetting his business zeal and 
gravity. ‘You make entirely too much of it.” He 
looked Frederick straight in the face in a peculiar way 
with a significant expression in his large round eyes. 
Then he continued: “ For an engagement of twenty 
evenings in cities to be decided upon, I offer you one 
hundred and fifty dollars more per evening than any- 
body else has yet offered you, the engagement to begin 
inside of four days. If you are agreed, we can go to 
the lawyer this minute.” 

Within less than half an hour Frederick and Ingigerd 
were standing in a huge elevator, which was to take them 
to the fifth floor of a New York City office building. 

Ingigerd was the only woman in the elevator, and it 


294 ATLANTIS 


pleased her that for her sake the nineteen gentlemen 
in the car held their hats in their hands. 

“If you have never before seen such a thing,” Lilien- 
feld said to Frederick, “ the offices of a big American 
lawyer will astonish you. This is a law firm, two part- 
ners, Brown and Samuelson; but Brown’s a nincompoop 
and Samuelson is the whole thing.” 

The offices of the famous New York lawyer, Samuel- 
son, were partitioned off with wood and ground glass 
from an immense hall, a writing factory, in which 
there was a horde of assistants working typewriters. 
Samuelson made the impression of a man of nearly forty. 
He was not very tall, had a bad, pallid complexion, and 
wore a short, pointed beard. The clothes of this man, 
whose share of the firm’s income was estimated at three 
hundred thousand dollars a year, though of the correct 
cut, were by no means new; in fact, they were rather 
shabby, and his entire appearance suggested that he was 
scarcely a model of American cleanliness. He spoke in 
a very low, thick voice, as if suffering from a sore 
throat. 

Within less than fifteen minutes, the contract between 
Lilienfeld and Ingigerd had been concluded, a contract, 
_.which owing to the fact that Ingigerd was a minor, was 
no more valid than the contract with Webster and 
Forster. Samuelson showed that he was informed of all 
the details of the case of Hahlstrém vs. Webster and 
Forster. When the question of their demands arose, 
he merely smiled with an air of great disdain and said: 

* We will quietly lie low and let thém make the ad- 
vance.” 

When Ingigerd and Frederick were sitting alone to- 
gether in a closed cab on the way home, he put his arms 
about her passionately. 


ATLANTIS 295 


*‘ Tf you dance on the stage, Ingigerd, I’ll go out of 
my mind. [I feel as if you and I and our love would be 
exposed in the pillory. If it were I instead of you, it 
would not be half so hard to stand.” 

The poor young scholar began again to pour out be- 
fore the little vampire all the anguish he had been suffer- 
ing, this time with hot kisses and embraces. 

“Tam a drowning man. If you do not hold your 
hand out to me I shall sink forever. You are stronger 
than I am. You can save me. The world is nothing 
to me. What I lost is nothing, was nothing and will 
always be nothing to me, if only I can exchange it for 
you. Come with me, and you shall be all in all to me, 
the one thing of significance in my life.” | 

** You are not weak,” the girl whispered with a dying- 
away look in her eyes. She breathed heavily, her nar- 
row lips parted, and that fatal, seductive smile spread 
over her languishing face, like a mask. 

“Take me! Run away with me!” 

For a time they were silent as the cab rolled along 
easily on its rubber tires. 

“They can wait a long while for you, Ingigerd,” 
Frederick at length said. ‘To-morrow we shall be 
with Peter Schmidt in Meriden.” es 

But she laughed. Yes, she laughed at him, and ~ 
Frederick clearly saw he had melted her body, not her 
soul; or a soul was a thing this girl didnot possess. 

The cab came to a halt in front of the club-house. 
Frederick seemed to have lost his speech. Without 
saying a word, he escorted Ingigerd to the door, pressed 
her hand, and returned to the cab. He chose a place . 
at random, and called to the coachman to drive him 
there. 


© 296 ATLANTIS 


XII 


Frepericx crouched in a corner of the cab. In a pas- 
sion of shame, he called himself the vilest names. He 
removed his slouched hat, which he had not yet replaced 
by the New York chimney-pot, wiped the sweat from 
his brow, and beat his fist against his forehead. 

“My poor father! Within a month, I shall prob- 
ably be no more nor less than the official kept man of a 
prostitute. Everybody will know me and pay homage 
to me. Every German barber in New York will tell 
his patrons who my father is, and who I am, and what 
I live by, and whom I am running after. I shall be- 
come that worthless little fiend’s lap dog, her monkey 
to perform tricks for her, her procurer. The German 
colonies in every city, large or small, that we visit will 
behold in me a typical example of the loathsome degree 
to which a scion of the German nobility can sink, into 
what a cesspool of vice a man who was once a good man, 
husband, and father can descend.” 

While being bowled rapidly down Broadway, Fred- 
erick, in his state of introspection and shame, looked 
blindly upon the houses as they glided by. Suddenly 
he started up from his crouching position. ‘The sign 
of the Hoffman House had struck his eye and recalled 
the appointment the men on the Hamburg had made. 
He consulted his watch, and found it was just about the 
time they had set, between twelve and one. He called 
to the driver, but before the horse could be brought to 
a stop, the cab had rolled some distance beyond the 
hotel. Frederick got out, paid the coachman, and in 
a few moments was inside the well-known New York 
bar-room. 

He saw a long bar, marble slabs, marble wainscot- 


ATLANTIS 297 


ing, polished brass, polished silver, shining mirrors, on 
which there was not the smallest speck of dust, very 
many shining glasses, empty glasses, glasses with straws 
sticking in them, and glasses partially filled with bits 
of ice. Bar-keepers in spotless white linen prepared 
the famous American drinks, innumerable in variety, 
with a dexterity bordering on art and a stolidity out of 
which nothing could shake them. 

The wall behind the bar was studded within reaching 
distance with an array of gleaming polished metal taps; 
back of the bar were the passageways to the pantries 
and kitchen. Oil paintings hung above the taps and 
doorways. Over the heads of the business men stand- 
ing or leaning at the bar, with derbies or silk hats shoved 
back from their foreheads, Frederick saw a delicious | 
woman’s figure by Courbet; sheep by Troyon; a bright 
seascape with clouds by Dupré; several choice pieces 
by Daubigny, sheep on a dune landscape, a pool re- 
flecting the full moon hanging low over the horizon and 
two cud-chewing oxen; a Corot —a tree, a cow, water, 
a glorious evening sky; a Diaz —a pond, old birches, 
light reflected in the water; a Rousseau —a gigantic 
tree in a storm; a Millet —a pot with turnips, pewter 
spoons and knives; a dark portrait by Delacroix; an- 
other Courbet, a landscape; a small Bastien-Lepage, a 
girl and a man in the grass with a great deal of light; 
and many other excellent pictures. He was so fas- 
cinated that he almost forgot his recent experience and 
his purpose in coming. 

In his complete absorption, he was only vaguely an- 
noyed by a rather loud group, whose boisterous laugh- 
ter and restlessness contrasted sharply with the quiet 
demeanour of the other guests. Suddenly he felt a 
hand on his shoulder, started, looked around and met 


298 ATLANTIS 


the eyes of a man whose bearded face seemed coarse 
and unfamiliar. Cocktails and other good drinks had 
shot his peony complexion with a bluish tinge. 

** What’s the matter?” the stranger said. “ Don’t 
you know me — Captain Butor? ” 

Captain Butor, the man to whom Frederick owed his 
life! And now he also recognised the other members of 
the noisy group. There were Arthur Stoss and his 
valet, Bulke, in inconspicuous black livery, sitting a 
little off from the others. ‘There were Doctor Wilhelm, 
and the painter Jacob Fleischmann, and Wendler, the 
Hamburg’s engineer, and two sailors from the Roland, 
wearing new suits and caps. They had already been 
engaged on another steamer of the same line and had 
been presented with a fair sum of money. 

The men all greeted Frederick like an old friend. 
Arthur Stoss, for the benefit of a New York gentleman, 
was retailing his old story, that he intended in a short 
while to give up touring and retire. He made frequent 
loud references to his wife, evidently considering it very 
worth while to publish as widely as possible the fact 
that he, the man without arms, actually possessed a 
wife. 

**T have met with the most tremendous success this 
time,” he said. ‘ Last night the audience stormed the 
stage and lifted me on their shoulders to the tune of 
* 1492,’ the song they sing every evening in the Metro- 
politan Theatre.” 

*¢ 1492 *— wherever he turned his eyes, on the streets 
and open squares, Frederick read advertisements of the 
ballad, a product of the vaudeville stage, in which 
the discovery of America, four hundred years after the 
landing of Columbus, was interpreted in the patriotic 
sense of the new nation that had since arisen. 


ATLANTIS 299 


‘Well, Doctor von Kammacher, how are you?” 
asked Doctor Wilhelm. ‘‘ How have you spent your 
time? ” 

“ Oh, so, so,”? Frederick replied, shrugging his shoul- 
ders. He did not know how he came to frame this sum- 
mary dismissal of a time so rich in content. Strange 
to say, here on land, in the Hoffman bar, little or none 
of his former impulse remained to entrust confidences 
to his fellow-physician. 

“‘ How’s our little girl? ” Doctor Wilhelm inquired, 
smiling significantly. 

“T do not know,” Frederick returned with an expres- 
sion of cool astonishment, and added: ‘* Whom do you 
mean? ” | 

As his answers to all their inquiries were equally curt 
and stiff, it was impossible to start a conversation. He 
himself in the first few minutes did not understand why 
he had come. It was extremely disturbing to him that 
the other men in the bar-room recognised the group as 
the survivors of the Roland. Stoss by himself, the man 
without arms, the well-known marksman, would have 
_ been conspicuous. 

Stoss could drink holding a plate between his teeth; 
but he was not touching liquor to-day. Nevertheless, 
he was in a treating mood, a circumstance by which 
Captain Butor, Wendler, Fleischmann and the sailors 
profited to toast one another freely. Nor did Doctor 
Wilhelm require much urging. 

In an undertone he informed Frederick that The 
Staats-Zeitung in its issue of the morning before had 
opened a collection for Fleischmann, and a sum had al- 
ready come in such as the poor fellow in his whole life 
had probably never before seen. At last Frederick 
laughed, and heartily. He understood why Fileisch- 


300 . ATLANTIS 


mann was drinking heavily, with so determined a man- 
ner, and why he was puffing himself like a turkey. 

*¢ What do you think of that stuff, Doctor von Kam- 
macher? ” he asked, pointing to the paintings and 
snorting disdainfully. ‘To call such stuff art! Mill- 
ions and millions are spent on getting those things over 
from France. They palm the trash off on the Ameri- 
cans. I'll wager that if one of us Germans in Munich, 
Dresden, or Berlin were to do no better than that, or 
that ’°— he pointed at random to several pictures — 
‘we'd put him in the A B C class.” 

“* Perfectly true,” said Frederick, laughing. 

“ Just you wait,” cried Fleischmann. ‘ll show 
the Americans a thing or two. German art —” 

But Frederick ceased to listen. His only impression 
after the lapse of some time was, that in the meanwhile 
Fleischmann had misused the same words, “‘ German 
art,” an endless number of times. ‘Turning to Doctor 
Wilhelm he said unblushingly: 

“Do you remember the way this howling dog, this 
creature laughing like a lunatic, rose up out of the 
waves beside our boat? ” 

Captain Butor and Wendler, who had been laughing 
mightily over something, now stepped up with brimming 
eyes, as if they deemed the time had come to be serious 
for a few moments in the company of the two physi- 
cians, 

“Did you hear, gentlemen, that Newfoundland fish- 
ermen have sighted corpses and floating fragments of 
the Roland?” said Captain Butor. “ Life-preservers 
from the Roland have also been found. The corpses 
and fragments are said to have been washed on a sand 
reef, where a lot of sharks and birds are hovering and 


ATLANTIS 301 


swarming. The fishermen say the sharks and birds 
are what first attracted their attention.” 

“What is your opinion, Captain?” asked Doctor 
Wilhelm. “Do you think anybody from the Roland 
beside ourselves will turn up dead or alive? ” 

As to living persons, the captain would not commit 
himself. 

“It may be,” he said, “ that one or two of the life- 
boats were carried farther south and entered calm wa- 
ters. Only, in that case, they were not in the course 
of the large steamers, and they may not have met a 
vessel for three or four days. Derelicts, fragments, 
and corpses are usually carried south by the Labrador 
Current until they meet the Gulf Stream, which carries 
them to the northeast. If they turn northward with 
the Gulf Stream at the Azores, they may soon reach the 
coast of Scotland.” 

“Then there is a chance,” said Frederick, “ that our 
magnificent Captain von Kessel may still find a grave in 
some Scotch potter’s field.” 

“We poor captains,” said Butor, who looked more 
like a German horse-car conductor than a captain. 
“They ask us to command the sea and the storm, like 
our Lord Jesus Christ, and if we cannot, we have the 
choice of drowning in the ocean or hanging on land.” 

Arthur Stoss joined them, and said: 

**Do you remember when the Roland began to sink, 
were the bulkheads shut down? ” 

Frederick reflected and said, “ No, they weren’t.” 

“I am of the same impression,” said Stoss. ‘ The 
sailors declare they know nothing about it.” 

“We carried out whatever orders we received,” said 
the sailors. 


302 ATLANTIS 


Fleischmann put in his word: 

.“ The bulkheads were not closed down. I never saw 
the captain, and I don’t know what sort of man he was. 
But the bulkheads were not closed. My place was next 
to a family of Russian Jewish emigrants. We felt an 
awful shock, and a crashing and crunching as if the 
ship had run against a great rock. The panic broke 
out immediately. All lost their heads and went clean 
out of their minds. We were hurled against one an- 
other and against the walls. Here you can see how I 
was bruised.” He rolled up his sleeves. ‘‘ There was 
a dark girl belonging to the Russian Jewish family 
who saw to it that time should not hang heavy on my 
hands during the trip.” Doctor Wilhelm looked at 
Frederick significantly. ‘ She wouldn’t let go of me. 
She was hoarse from screaming. Finally, all she could 
do was pant. She hung on to me, and, as I said, kept 
panting, ‘ Either you’ll go down with me or you'll 
save me. What could I do? I really had to give her 
one over her head.” 

** Yes,” said Wendler, ** what is a man to do in a case 
like that? MHere’s to you, gentlemen! ” 

All touched glasses. Frederick turned pale, and the 
others laughed heartily. 

“By the way, Doctor von Kammacher,” said Stoss, 
“IT just thought of that Hahlstrém girl. Really, you 
ought to persuade her to come to an agreement with 
Webster and Forster. If you keep her from dancing, 
you will be interfering with her future,” 

“I?” queried Frederick. ‘ What an idea! What 
business is it of mine? ” 

Stoss, without heeding him, continued: 

“Webster and Forster are, as a rule, very decent. 
But their influence and connections are incalculable, 


ATLANTIS | 303 


Woe to the man or woman that incurs their displeas- 
ure.” 

“I beg your pardon, Mr. Stoss, but you may as well 
spare your breath. I am by no means the girl’s 
guardian. Nor am [I at all fitted to be a trafficker in 
men or girls.” 

“Oh, oh, oh! Why so severe?” said Stoss. The 
others, including Doctor Wilhelm, chimed in; which 
only heightened Frederick’s brusqueness. ‘* Don’t you 
know there’s lots of money in that little witch just now? 
As the American business man says, ‘ There’s money in 
it. Don’t forget we’re in the dollar land, where you 
can’t rest until the ground has been completely ex- 
hausted and the last nugget of gold has been extracted.” 

Frederick was outraged. He felt like taking his hat 
and running away. In his present mood, he could 
scarcely conceive why he had come to meet these peo- 
ple. To turn the conversation and give vent to his 
spite and ill humour, and also for a nobler reason, he 
suddenly began to speak of the maid, Rosa, denouncing 
the American newspapers for having said almost noth- 
ing of the heroic girl. 

“It would be of far more importance to me to do 
something for her than for any other woman. I’m not 
a man to bargain and haggle; but if a collection was 
made and they did not collect for Rosa, then they neg- 
lected a true heroine of the Roland.” 

“What do you mean by that? What do you 
mean?” Fleischmann demanded somewhat rudely, 
afraid of losing his booty. 

Here Bulke intervened. 

** Remember, Mr. Fleischmann, Rosa was the first to 
see you. If Rosa hadn’t dragged you out of the water 
—— she’s as strong as a bear—the rest of us in the 


804 ATLANTIS 


boat might merely have struck you over the head with 
our oars and let you sink.” 

**'You’re talking nonsense, you numskull,” said 
Fleischmann, withdrawing and turning toward the wall 
with the pictures. ‘“‘I keep seeing nothing but those 
two moonstruck oxen.” He referred to one of the won- 
derful Daubignys. 

Frederick paid and took leave, declining, as politely 
as he could, their proposition that they all lunch to- 
gether. 


XITT 


Wuewn alone on the street, Frederick felt some dis- 
gust with himself for lacking humour. Were those 
innocent men to blame if he happened to have rasped 
nerves? Since it was Frederick’s way, as soon as he 
perceived that he had done a wrong, to set resolutely 
to work to undo it to the full extent of his ability, he 
decided, after coming to the conclusion that the fault 
had been his, to lunch with his shipmates after all. He 
had been walking about eight minutes. He now turned 
back, accelerating his pace, and within five minutes the 
sign of the Hoffman House was again in sight. Broad- 
way as usual was crowded, and the two endless chains 
of yellow cable cars with short spaces between were 
perpetually moving by each other. It was cold and 
windy. There was a great din and bustle on the streets, 
and into the din and bustle Frederick saw his friends 
of the Roland and the Hamburg step from the bar. 
As he was about to wave to them, he slipped and stum- 
bled on a piece of fruit on the pavement. 

* Don’t fall, Doctor von Kammacher!” a woman’s 
voice cried, ‘How do you do?” On regaining his 


ATLANTIS 305 


equilibrium Frederick found himself face to face with 
a beautiful, dignified young lady hidden behind a veil 
and wearing a fur hat and coat. He slowly recog- 
nised Miss Eva Burns. “I’m in luck,” she said. “TI 
very rarely come to this part of the city. It just so 
happened that I had to buy something near here, and 
I am on the way now to my restaurant. I always take 
my meals in a restaurant, because I loathe boarding- 
houses. By chance, too, I am later than usual. A 
little lady whom you know, Miss Hahlstrém, visited the 
studio with Mr. Franck and kept me three quarters of 
an hour longer than I am accustomed to stay.” 

* Do you take your meals alone, Miss Burns? ” 

** Yes,”’ she said, somewhat taken aback at the abrupt 
question. ‘“ Does that seem strange to you? ” 

* Oh, no, not at all,’? Frederick hastened to assure 
her. “ The astonished expression on my face was 
merely due to my stumbling and to this unexpected 
meeting with you. The reason I inquired whether you 
eat alone was because I wanted to ask you if you had 
any objections to my lunching with you.” 

“I should be very glad if you were to, Doctor von 
Kammacher.” 

The stately couple attracted much attention from 
passers-by. Frederick was tall and rather broad and 
carried himself well, and his hair and beard may have 
gone rather too long without the application of the 
shears. Eva Burns was almost as tall. She was a 
brunette, suggesting in her face and figure, which bore 
no resemblance to the wasp-like figures of the American 
women, a race and type more in accordance with the 
Titian ideal of feminine beauty. 

** Would you mind waiting here a minute?” Fred- 
erick asked. ‘ You see those people over there getting 


306 ATLANTIS 


into the car? Some of them God in his inscrutable 
ways destined to be fellow-passengers of mine on the 
Roland, the others my rescuers. I should not like to 
meet them again.” When the little company was 
safely aboard the car on the way to Brooklyn, he said: 
“Tam profoundly grateful —” and stopped. 

** Because you were rescued from those men in the 
car? ”’ Miss Burns laughed. 

*“ No. Because I met you, and you rescued me from 
them. I admit I am ungrateful. There’s that captain 
— when I saw his ship come steaming toward us from 
across the waters and saw him standing on the bridge, 
he seemed to me to be an instrument of God, if not an 
archangel. Awe-inspiring repose, solemn, awe-inspir- 
ing grandeur rested upon him. He was not a man, he 
was the man, the saviour man, and beside him there was 
none. My soul, all of our souls, clamoured for him, 
worshipped him. But here he has dwindled into noth- 
ing but a good, commonplace little workman. On the 
trip, Stoss’s liveliness was a relief. Now, in the tread- 
mill of his daily occupation, he has turned from the 
finer thoughts of his leisure moments. Duty, while 
deepening Captain Butor and temporarily converting 
him into a useful, even an important personage, acts 
as a leveller on Stoss. Stoss merely seemed to partake 
in the life on the sea, while in actuality concerned with 
nothing but himself. And there’s my colleague, the 
ship’s surgeon. I was completely upset to find what 
an empty vessel he is.. I really thought he was more 
interesting.” As if sluices in his being had been 
opened wide, Frederick began to speak freely of the 
shipwreck, to which he had never before more than 
merely alluded: 

“What particularly frightened me to-day was the 


ATLANTIS 307 


fact that a man can, as it were, digest an oak-tree twice 
within less than forty-eight hours. I keep discovering 
myself in the act of doubting the wreck of that giant 
steamer, every corner of which was familiar to me. I 
saw something, but I am so infinitely remote from it that 
I still cannot grasp it. I am only just beginning to 
feel the ship coming to life in my soul. Four or five 
times within the past twenty-four hours, I experienced 
the whole accident over again. Last night I started up 
actually bathed in cold sweat, and did not know where 
I was. The confusion on board, the tooting of the 
distress signals, the bloody, distorted faces, the floating 
human limbs, all was so frightfully appalling. If I 
keep on seeing such visions, I’ll go down with the Roland 
again. 

“It may be morbid to feel as I do. A man in my 
condition may say to himself, ‘Go down and stay down, 
if once you have sunk.’ But those people who got 
into the car do not even say that, Miss Burns. The 
whole thing has gone down for them once for all. They 
have digested the whole of the Roland and everything 
that happened to the hundreds of human beings it was 
carrying. ‘They have digested the whole affair and al- 
most forgotten it. That ability of theirs, enviable 
though it may be, insults my general humanitarian in- 
stincts. It is loathsome to me. And their clumsy 
phrases revealing the indifference, the obtuseness of 
their souls make me shudder. In their eyes I see that 
calm selfish sense of their own security to the damage of 
another person’s security which is at the bottom of a 
murderous madness that I myself experienced. Those 
men are cold men, they are murderous men. And a 
brutal state of self-defence but slightly veiled and sup- 
pressed is their permanent state,” 


308 ATLANTIS 


** Your friends, it seems to me, must have behaved 
very badly,” Miss Burns said, laughing. 

To this Frederick could not truthfully assent. He 
merely repeated: 

“ The way I feel about it is that they have taken the 
ship between their teeth, the ship with all its timber 
and iron and its immense human cargo, and chewed it 
to a pulp, and swallowed it down without leaving a 
trace behind.”? He removed his hat and ran his fin- 
gers through his hair. 

“If you really do wish to lunch with me, Doctor von 
Kammacher, you must not have high-flown notions, like 
Mr. Ritter,” said Miss Burns halting in front of a tidy 
little restaurant. 

They entered a low room with a red brick floor and 
panelled walls and ceiling. Owing to the enormous 
timber resources of their country, the Americans make 
a very free, though refined use of wood. The clean 
little room was frequented by German barbers, riding- 
masters, coachmen, and clerks. An inexpensive lunch 
and the usual American drinks were dispensed at the 
bar. The corner where the proprietor sat was deco- 
rated with a small collection of sporting pictures, well- 
known jockeys with their horses, acrobats, and base- 
ball champions. Something in his appearance sug- 
gested that at night he had different customers to deal 
with than in the daytime, that his athletic figure — he 
was neatly dressed, but in his shirt sleeves — was meant 
to inspire respect in his clients. Frederick still suf- 
fered from too much breeding, and he was secretly as- 
tonished that Eva Burns ventured into such a place. 

-“ You are late, Miss Burns. Aren’t you feeling 
well? ” inquired the host, with an immobile mask-like 
seriousness of expression. 


| ATLANTIS, 309 


_ “Oh, yes, Mr. Brown. I’m always all right,” Miss 
Burns answered brightly. ‘“ Bring me my regular 
lunch. But the gentleman, I am afraid, will not be sat- 
isfied with it. Perhaps you have something special for 
him? ” 

Frederick, however, insisted upon ordering the very 
same as Miss Burns. 

“JT give you fair warning,” she said when they were 
alone, “I really don’t think you will be satisfied with 
my diet. I never eat meat, I want you to know, and 
you surely do.” 

Frederick laughed. ‘‘ We physicians,” he said, 
“are also coming more and more to give up a meat 
diet.” 

“ T think it is horrible to eat meat,” said Miss Burns. 
‘IT have a handsome fowl in my garden. I see it every 
day, and then I go and cut its throat and eat it 
up. When we were children, we had a pony which 
had to be killed, and the people in the East End ate 
it.” She drew her long kid gloves from her hands 
without removing them from her arms. ‘“ People eat 
dogs, too. I adore dogs. But the worst thing is the 
frightful, endless shedding of blood which human meat- 
eaters deem necessary for their preservation. Think 
of all the butchers in the world, think of those immense 
slaughter-houses in Chicago and other places where the 
machine-like, wholesale murder of innocent animals is 
constantly going on. People can live without meat. 
It isn’t indispensable to their welfare.” 

She said all this in a tone of seriousness tinged with 
humour, speaking a correct, though somewhat laboured 
German. 

** For various reasons,” Frederick said, “ I still hesi- 
tate to form a definite opinion in regard to meat-eating. 


310 ATLANTIS 


As for myself, I can do very well without meat, pro- 
vided I have my steak regularly every day for lunch 
and my roast beef for dinner.” 

Miss Burns looked astonished, then laughed merrily. 

** You are a physician,” she cried. ‘ You physicians 
are all animal torturers.” 

* You refer to vivisection? ” 

“ Yes, to vivisection. It’s a shame, it’s a sin. It’s 
a horrible sin to torture innocent animals to death just 
for the sake of adding a few days more to the life of 
some commonplace person.” 

Frederick did not reply, being too much a man of 
science to concur in her opinion.. Miss Burns detected 
this, and said: 

“You German physicians are horrible men. When 
I am in Berlin, I am in a constant state of dread that 
I shall die unexpectedly and before my relatives can 
prevent it, I shall be taken to your dreadful laborato- 
ries for dissection.” 

** Oh, then you have been in Berlin, Miss Burns? ” 

* Certainly, I have been everywhere.” 

The conversation now turned on Berlin. Miss 
Burns spoke of it glowingly, because it offered the 
greatest opportunities for hearing good music and see- 
ing good plays. 

‘I have a number of friends among the Berlin pro- 
fessors and artists. One of them is a Polish pianist. 
He brings back money by the bushel from his Amer- 
ican tours. He owns an estate near Cracow, and has 
asked me to visit him there. Unless I accept his invi- 
tation sooner than I expect to, I shall not see Berlin 
again for a long time.” 

The host served the lunch, consisting of baked po- 
tatoes, cabbage and fried eggs. Though at any other 





ATLANTIS 811 


time this would scarcely have satisfied Frederick, he ate 
with a hearty appetite and, like Miss Burns, drank 
American ice-water. 

Miss Burns’s manner in talking was thoroughly un- 
constrained and sprightly. She had observed that the 
foundering of the Roland was still too vivid in Fred- 
erick’s thoughts, and bearing Peter Schmidt’s warning 
in mind, purposely turned the conversation away from 
it. But Frederick, for some reason dissatisfied with 
himself for his criticism of his fellow-passengers, tried 
several times to revert to the shipwreck. His whole 
demeanour showed that something was gnawing at him 
and tormenting him. 

** We speak of a justice imminent in the plan of the 
world. But why was such a pitiful collection of men 
saved, while hundreds of others drowned? Why did 
that splendid Captain von Kessel drown? [I shall never 
forget him. Why did all those splendid picked men 
of the crew of the Roland drown? Why and for what 
purpose was I myself saved? ” 

** Doctor von Kammacher,” said Miss Burns, “ yes- 
terday you were an entirely different man. You were 
full of brightness and life; to-day you are all gloom. 
I think you are wholly wrong in not being simply grate- 
ful for your good fortune. In my opinion, you are 
not responsible either for the quality of those who were 
rescued, or for your own rescue, or for the number of 
those that sank. The creation was planned and ex- 
ecuted without regard to you, and you have to accept 
it as it is. After all, to accept life is the one art the 
practice of which is really of permanent use.” 

** You are right,” said Frederick, “ only I am a man. 
Besides I inherit a most unnecessary instinct for ideal % 
rather than practical activity. ‘The time is out of 


v 


312 ATLANTIS 


joint,” says your Danish Englishman, Hamlet. ‘O 
cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right. I 
cannot get rid of that absurd megalomania. To make 
matters worse, there is the Faust in me that sticks in 
every good German who thinks anything of himself. 
‘I’ve studied now Philosophy and Jurisprudence, Med- 
icine,’ and so on. As a result, a man has all the more 
chances of being disillusioned at every turn, and so 
would rather pledge himself to the devil. Strange to 
say, the first thing the devil usually prescribes is a 
blonde Gretchen, or something like her.” 

Miss Burns remained silent, and Frederick felt him- 
self under the necessity of continuing. 

*T don’t know whether it is of interest to you to 
learn something of the remarkable adventures of a Ger- 
man scholar and ideologic bankrupt.” 

Miss Burns laughed and said: 

“A bankrupt? No, I don’t think you are a bank- 
rupt. Of course, whatever concerns you and whatever 
you wish to tell me is of interest to me.” 

* Very well,” said Frederick, “ we’ll see whether you 
are right. Conceive a man who, until he was thirty 
years old, was always going the wrong way, or if not 
that, then, at least, the trips he took, no matter along 
what way, always ended precipitately in a broken shaft 
or a fractured limb. That I escaped the real catas- 
trophe, the shipwreck, is really most peculiar. Never- 
theless, I think my ship has been wrecked and I with it, 
or I and my ship are in the midst of foundering. For 
I see no land. I see nothing solid or firm anywhere 
near me, 

‘I was kept in a military school until I was ten years 
old. The desire came upon me to commit suicide, and 
I was punished for insubordination. There was no 


ATLANTIS 313 


fascination for me in being prepared for a great carnage. 
So my father, though it meant that he had to give up 
his pet idea, took me away from the school, and I went 
through the much-discussed humanistic Gymnasium. 
My father is a passionate soldier. I became a physi- 
cian, but I had scientific interests outside of my profes- 
sion, and I devoted myself to bacteriology. Broken 
shafts and fractured limbs again. Good-bye to medi- 
cine and bacteriology. It is scarcely likely that I shall 
ever work in those fields again. I married. Before- 
hand, I had reared, as it were, an artificial structure of 
the whole matter of marriage — a house, a little garden, 
a wife and children, children whom I intended to edu- 
cate in a freer, better way than most people do. I 
practised in a poor country district, being of the opinion 
that I could do more real good there than in Berlin 
West. ‘ But, my dear boy,’ everybody said, ‘ with your 
- ancestral name, your income in Berlin could be thirty 
or forty times larger? And my wife absolutely ob- 
jected to having children. From the very moment she 
knew a child was coming until its birth, there was one 
desperate scene after the other. Life became a veri- 
table hell to us. It was no rare thing for us, instead of 
sleeping, to argue the whole night through, from ten 
o’clock in the evening until five the next morning. I 
would try mild persuasion and comfort, I would urge 
every conceivable argument softly and loudly, violently 
and gently, wildly and tenderly. My wife’s mother, 
too, did not understand me. My wife was disillusioned, 
her mother was disillusioned. She saw nothing but 
craziness in my avoiding a great career. ‘Then there 
‘was this —I don’t know whether it occurs in all young 
marriages — each time before the child was born, we 
quarrelled over all the minutix of its education, from 


314 ATLANTIS 


infancy to its twentieth year. We quarrelled over 
whether the boy should be educated in the house, as I 
wished, or in the public schools, as my wife wished. I 
said, ‘ The girl shall receive instruction in gymnastics.’ 
My wife said, ‘ She shall not receive instruction in gym- 
nastics.’ And the girl was not yet born. We quar- 
relled so violently, that we threatened each other with 
divorce and suicide. My wife would lock herself into 
a room and I would beat against the door, because I 
was frightened and dreaded the worst. Then there 
were reconciliations, the consequences of which were only 
to increase the miserable nervous tension in our home. 
One day I had to put my mother-in-law out of the house 
as a way of securing peace. Even my wife realised 
that it was necessary to do it. We loved each other, 
and in spite of all that happened, we both had the best 
intentions. We have three children, Albrecht, Bern- 
hard and Annemarie. They came inside of three years, 
one very soon after the other, you see. My wife had a 
nervous tendency which these births brought to a crisis. 
After the very first child was born, she had an attack of 
profound melancholia. Her mother had to admit that 
Angéle had, been subject to similar attacks from child- 
hood up. After the last child was born, I took her on 
a two months’ trip in Italy. It was a lovely time, and 
her spirits actually seemed to brighten under the happy 
sky of Italy. But her sickness progressed below the 
surface. I am thirty-one years old and have been mar- 
ried eight years. My oldest boy is seven years old. 
It is now ”— Frederick reflected a few moments —“ it 
is now the beginning of February. It was about the 
middle of October last fall when I found my wife in her 
room slashing to tiny bits a piece of not exactly inex- 


pensive silk which we had bought in Ziirich and which 


ATLANTIS 315 


had been lying in her drawer more than four years. I 
can still see the costly red stuff, that is, as much of it as 
had not been cut, and a loose mountain of patches lying 
on the floor. I said, ‘ Angéle, what are you doing?’ 
And then I took in the situation. Nevertheless, I 
cherished hopes for a time. But one night I awoke and 
saw my wife’s face close above me with a ghastly tar- 
away look in it. At the same time I felt something at 
my throat. It was the very pair of scissors with which 
she had cut the red silk. ‘Come, Frederick,’ she said, 
‘ get up and dress. We must both go to sleep in a coffin 
of linden-wood.’ It was high time to tell her relatives 
and mine and convoke a family council. I might have 
protected myself, but it was dangerous for the children. 

** So you see,” Frederick concluded, “ it was not very 
far along the road of marriage that I travelled with my 
talent for life. I want everything and nothing. I can 
do everything and nothing. My mind has been over- 
loaded, and yet has remained empty.” 

* You certainly did go through a hard time,” said 
Miss Burns simply. 

Yes,” said Frederick, “‘ you are right, but only if 
you use the present tense instead of the past and if you 
fully gauge the extent to which the trouble with my wife 
has been complicated for me. ‘The question is, am I to 
blame for the course that my wife’s mental suffering 
took, or may I acquit myself of all blame? All I can 
say is, that the suit in this case, in which I myself am 
plaintiff, defendant and judge, is still pending, and no 
definite decision has yet been rendered. 

“Now, Miss Burns, do you see any sense in the 
Atlantic Ocean’s having refused to take me of all the 
persons on board the Roland? Do you see any sense 
in my having fought like a madman for my mere ex- 


316 ATLANTIS 


istence? Do you see any sense in my having struck 
some unfortunate creatures over the head with my oars 
because they nearly capsized our boat? I struck them 
so hard that they sank back in the water without a 
sound and disappeared. Isn’t it vile that I still cling to 
life and that I would rather do anything than give up 
this botched and bungled existence of mine? ” 

Though he had spoken in a light conversational tone, 
Frederick was pale and excited. It was long since the 
plates had been removed, and Miss Burns, perhaps to 
avoid a painful answer, asked: 

** Shall we take coffee here, Doctor von Kammacher? ” 

** Whatever you will, to-day, to-morrow, and forever, 
provided I do not annoy you. I am a gloomy com- 
panion, I fear. I fancy there is no other person in the 
world troubled with such petty egoism as Iam. Think 
of it, my wife locked up in an asylum is occupied every 
moment of the day with proving her own selfishness, 
weakness, unworthiness and wickedness toward me. Be- 
cause she is so unworthy, as she says, and because I am 
so great, so noble, so admirable, they have to watch her 
all the time, I am told, to keep her from inflicting injury 
upon herself. A very pleasant fact to be conscious of, 
isn’t it, Miss Burns, and haven’t I good reason to feel 
proud? ” 

“What you need,” said Miss Burns, “is rest. I 
never thought —I beg your pardon for saying so — 
that a man who outwardly makes the impression of such 
strength can possess such a wee, trembling soul. What 
you ought to do now, I should think, is simply cover up 
your past as much as possible. All of us have to do 
some covering up in order to be fit for life.” 

** But I am altogether unfit,” said Frederick. ‘ This 
minute I am feeling strong, because I am with someone 








ATLANTIS 317 


in whose presence, for some reason or other, I can wash 
myself in clean water— excuse me, I am speaking 
euphemistically.” 

** You ought to concentrate on something, you ought 
to work,” said Miss Burns. ‘“ You ought to make your- 
self physically tired to the point of exhaustion.” 

“Oh, my dear Miss Burns,” cried Frederick, ‘* how 
you overestimate me! Work! I am no better than a 
tramp. The thing I thought to cure myself with was 
laziness, idleness. Here I sit in a land discovered and 
conquered as a result of the tremendous will power of 
the Europeans, with my oars gone, my rudder gone and 
my last bit of free will. It is this that distinguishes 
most men of to-day from the men of that time.” .»% 

Coffee was served, and for a while Frederick and Miss 
Burns stirred the sugar without speaking. Then Miss 
Burns asked: 

** How did you come to lose your free will, as you 
say? ” 

“ Theridium triste,” said Frederick and suddenly re- 
called the simile of the spider that Doctor Wilhelm had 
used in reference to Ingigerd. Miss Burns, of course, 
did not understand him; but Frederick broke off, and 
though she questioned him, refused to explain. She 
promptly withdrew her question, saying she thought it 
was quite right and good for him if the conversation 
lost its German philosophic cast and descended to the 
level of a superficial person like herself, 

“I advise you,” she added, “‘ no matter how sharply 
you may criticise yourself for having travelled so many 
roads without reaching the end, to strike out into a new 
road, and do so quite cheerfully. Confine yourself to 
something that makes an equal demand on your hands, 
your eyes and your brain. In short, return to your 


$18 ATLANTIS 


old love and try your hand again on sculpture. Per- 
haps in a few months you will be the creator of a world- 
famous Madonna in polychrome wood.” 

“You are mistaken in me,” Frederick rejoined. “I 
do nothing but blow soap bubbles. Leave me to my illu- 
sion, that there is a great artist in me awaiting the mo- | 
ment of self-expression and development. What I am 
really much more fitted for is to be Mr. Ritter’s coach- 
man, or valet, or at best his business manager.” 


XIV 


Miss Burns took out her little purse, refusing to let 
Frederick pay for her, and they stepped out again into 
the busy streets. 

“By Jove,” said Frederick, whose manner when in © 
the hurly-burly changed completely, “ what a lot of 
stuff I have been chattering! I deserve to be punished © 
for trying your patience to such an extent. I must 
have bored you horribly.” 

“Oh, no,” she said, “ I am accustomed to such con- — 
versations. I have associated with artists for many 
years.” 

* Do you mean to impugn my truthfulness, Miss © 
Burns? ” Frederick asked in some alarm. | 

“No, but I think,” she said calmly, with almost — 
masculine firmness, “that if nature makes us suffer © 
through something, she does not intend us to suffer 
again and again from the same thing. It seems to me ~ 
the Creator had a definite intention in always and 
everywhere placing night and sleep between day and © 
day.” 3 
“ Not always and not everywhere,” Frederick ob- 


ATLANTIS 319 


' served, thinking of the difficulty he had had for many 
nights in snatching a few hours’ sleep. 

At a street crossing Miss Burns stopped to wait for 
a car to take her back to the studio. 

“ Look at that,” said Frederick, pointing to six sim- 
ilar placards of gigantic dimensions, which represented 
Mara, the Spider’s Victim, in screaming colours. <A 
green stripe was pasted slantwise on each placard, an- 
nouncing that the dancer had been suffering from the 
consequences of the shipwreck, but that she would ap- 
pear at Webster and Forster’s the next day for the first 
time in America. Above the advertisement on the same 
wall were seven or eight full-length pictures of Arthur 
Stoss larger than life-size. 

*‘ Your little friend invited Mr. Ritter to a rehearsal 
in a theatre on Broadway day after to-morrow. It was 
not Webster and Forster’s,” said Miss Burns. Fred- 
erick explained what had happened in connection with 
Mr. Lilienfeld, though he himself had not known of the 
intended rehearsal. 

“TI feel nothing but pity for that girl,” he said 
lightly. ‘ As a result of a strange combination of cir- 
cumstances, I feel I am responsible for her. She lost 
her father, who was all in all to her, since she is not on 
good terms with her mother.” 

“Indeed?” said Miss Burns. “ Why, this very 
morning in a short conversation in the studio, she told 
me something very different.” 

** She did!” exclaimed Frederick. 

** She told me that in many ways her father had been 
a fearful burden to her. In the first place, she had to 
earn manag for him, and then he tyranniged over her 
terribly.” 

* Well,’ said Frederick, somewhat confused, “it is 


$20 ATLANTIS 


perhaps the essence of perversion that a person feels 
compelled to hoodwink people by doing things and mak- 
ing statements the very reverse of what is natural and 
what is to be expected. Miss Burns, I wish, I heartily 
wish, you would look out a little for that poor creature 
drifting about without anybody or anything to guide 
her.”’ 

** Good-bye,” said Miss Burns, hailing a car. ‘ Come 
and start work in the studio as soon as possible. As 
for your little friend, she is too self-willed. In fact, 
she has an iron will. There is no holding her, or leading 
her, that would keep her from doing anything she had 
once made up her mind to do.” 

When the car had carried Miss Burns off into the 
stream of New York traffic, Frederick, strangely 
enough, had a fleeting sense of forlornness, to him a 
novel sensation. Feeling inclined to taste it to the full, 
he continued to walk the streets alone, choosing his 
way at random. For the first time after speaking so 
freely to a comparative stranger, he did not regret his 
conduct. Again and again he went over in his mind 
his first meeting with Miss Burns in the studio, her man- 
ner during the lively carousal, when they discussed the 
wooden Madonna, his second meeting with her on the 
street, her upright carriage, her proud eyes, her impos- 
ing appearance in the little cosmopolitan restaurant. 
Without intending to, she undeniably dominated her 
surroundings, and that merely as a result of her natural- 
ness. It had given Frederick secret pleasure to watch 
her eat and drink daintily, yet heartily, without any 
airs or graces, and systematically dissect her orange and 
peel her apple. Eating and drinking was to her a 
noble, legitimate and also inevitable act, not to be dis- 


posed of lightly beneath a foolish masquerade. When 


0 Ee 





a to EE ES + 


TSE PS RT Pa De I OE TT | 


ee 








ATLANTIS $21 


Frederick recommended Ingigerd to her guidance, he 
did so because he himself had experienced a beneficent 
influence from her remarks, dictated by a beautiful in- 
tellect, and from the glance of her straight, honest, 
scrutinising eyes. 

“ At the risk of making myself ridiculous,” he said 
to himself, “ I will go to Ritter’s studio to-morrow morn- 
ing, bury my hands in the clay, and try to reconstruct 
my life again from the bottom up out of moist clay.” 


XV 


Ar about ten o’clock the next morning Ritter himself 
gave Frederick a very glad, bright welcome to his 
studio, and assigned to him a small room opening on 
Miss Burns’s room. Miss Burns proposed that he be- 
gin by copying a plaster-cast of the arm of the Saxon 
athlete. 

Frederick for the first time handled the moist clay 
fraught with so much significance, the clay out of which 
the gods made man and man in turn has made gods. 
As a result of the hours he had spent in Rome with 
sculptor friends, watching them work and observing 
each movement of their fingers, he accomplished his task 
with great ease, to his own astonishment and Miss 
Burns’s admiration. His anatomical knowledge and 
medical experience also stood him in good stead. 
Shortly before completing his course as a medical stu- 
dent, he had for a time entertained the idea of publish- 
ing an anatomy for sculptors, and with this in view had 
made a number of drawings which won the favour of 
real connoisseurs. 

After Frederick had worked feverishly with his shirt 
sleeves rolled up for three hours, the athlete’s muscular 


322 ATLANTIS 


arm began to take shape clearly, and he felt a sense of 
satisfaction wholly novel to him. In working he com- 
pletely forgot who he was, and where he was. When 
Willy Snyders came in, as he usually did on his way 
from his work to luncheon for the purpose of saying 
*‘ how-do-you-do ” to Bonifacius Ritter and art, it 
seemed to Frederick that he had been awakened from a 
dream and called back to a strange life. 

‘I am sorry to have to leave work and go to lunch. 
Lunch is really a very disturbing thing,” he confessed. 

When Ritter entered, they all laughed heartily at his 
genuine passion for sculpture. 

“When I return to Europe,” he said, “ I must im- 
mediately make portraits of my three children.” 

Miss Burns and Willy Snyders had actually made 
Frederick proud by their praise, though in Ritter’s pres- 
ence they turned silent awaiting the master’s verdict. 

*¢'You must certainly have modelled in clay before,” 
said Ritter. Frederick could honestly deny that he ever 
had. ‘“ Well,” Ritter rejoined, ‘* then you have handled 
your material like a man who has art in his blood. To 
judge by this first attempt, it seems to me you have 
merely been waiting for the clay and the clay has been 
waiting for you.” 

“ We'll see,” said Frederick, and added, ‘* Unfortu- 
nately there is a serious drawback. ‘The saying is that 
all beginnings are difficult. My former experiences 
lead me to believe that with me the reverse is generally 
true. As a rule I win the first and second round of 
chess, or cards, or billiards, and lose in the end. I suc- 
ceeded at first in my practice and my bacteriological re- 
searches. If I write a book, only the first and second 
chapters are worth anything.” 

The artists refused to believe this, though there was 


ATLANTIS 323 


a grain of truth in what he said. Nevertheless, Fred- 
erick left the studio with them in a healthier frame of 
mind than he had been in for years. 

But his spirits departed in a measure after he had 
spoken with Ingigerd Hahlstrém in the club-house. 
The girl listened unsympathetically, if not ironically, 
to his account of his new occupation. Ritter, Willy and 
Lobkowitz were secretly outraged at her disdainful re- 
marks, especially since they observed that Frederick 
was still entangled in the girl’s meshes, body and soul. 

She told him he must go to Webster and Forster and 
insist on their withdrawing a notification which they had 
sent to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to 
Children. Since her new contract with Lilienfeld meant 
the loss of the money that she was worth to them, they 
wanted revenge, at least, and were going to put a spoke 
in their competitor’s wheel. Ingigerd, beside herself 
with rage, told Frederick that in the morning she had 
had a brief rehearsal in the theatre, and a representative 
of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Chil- 
dren had announced his intention of attending the re- 
hearsal the next day. She was bent upon letting her 
light shine in New York and receiving twofold homage, 
the homage of pity and the homage of admiration. Be- 
sides, she did not want to lose the money in prospect. 
If she were prevented from appearing in New York, 
there was no chance for her anywhere in the United 
States. 

It was useless to oppose the girl’s obstinate will. 
Whether or no, to his unspoken disgust, Frederick had 
to perform messenger and handy-man services for the 
little star. He rushed from Webster and Forster to 
Lilienfeld, from Lilienfeld to the attorneys, Brown and 
Samuelson, from Second Avenue to Fourth Avenue, from 


324 ATLANTIS 


Fourth Avenue to Fifth Avenue, finally to knock at the 
door of Mr. Garry himself, the head of the Society for 
the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and represent to 
him Ingigerd Hahlstrém’s position, which was, that by 
preventing her appearance, the society would expose her 
to material want in a strange country. Mr. Garry re- 
fused to receive Frederick. 

Fortunately for him, Willy Snyders the good-hearted, 
in order to make things as easy as possible for him, 
sacrificed himself by obtaining an afternoon’s leave of 
absence from work. His saucy, healthy humour, his 
jolly remarks on New York conditions helped Frederick 
through many unpleasant moments. 

Frederick was happy when the next morning came 
and he could go at his modelling again. His brain, 
whirling with the rattle and clatter of New York, could 
spend itself in his passionate occupation, which em- 
ployed both his eyes and his hands. He deemed him- 
self fortunate for being genuinely unpractical and not 
having to take part in that gruesome horse-racing and 
sack-racing and target-shooting, that crawling and 
dancing and jumping for the sacrosanct dollar. The 
very breath of that frenzied life tore the garments of 
his soul into shreds, as it were, while this simple occupa- 
tion of modelling the details of the athlete’s arm, was 
healing to his soul. He was conscious of it. Now and 
then Miss Burns came in to inspect his work and ex- 
change a few words with him. He liked this. Her 
companionable presence soothed him and even made him 
happy. Her figure, her gestures, her conversation 
seemed to be the very essence of firmness and repose, and 
her self-sufficiency always aroused Frederick’s silent 
admiration. When he told her how perceptibly his new 
work acted as a sedative upon him, she replied that she 





ATLANTIS 325 


had had the same experience, and if he did not fly off 
at a tangent but remained steadily at the work, he would 
feel the good it did him even more. 


XVI 


IncicerD Hantustrom had “ invited ” the artists to her 
rehearsal at twelve o’clock. When they gathered in 
Miss Burns’s room — beside Frederick, there were Ritter, 
Lobkowitz, Willy Snyders, Miss Burns, and the gypsy- 
like painter Franck, who carried a portfolio and sketch- 
ing material —there was a certain solemnity in their 
manner. 

It was a clear day and the streets were dry, and they 
decided to walk to the theatre. On the way Ritter told 
Frederick of a little country house he was building for 
himself on Long Island. Frederick had already heard 
of it through Willy Snyders. It was to be a rather pre- 
tentious building, with gardens and stables and barns. 
Ritter was erecting it according to his own ideas and 
plans. He discussed the beauties of the Doric column. 
It was the most natural of column forms and therefore 
the most suitable for any surroundings. That was why 
he had used it in his villa. For his interiors, he had 
partly followed Pompeian models, and there was to be 
an atrium. He spoke of a little figure, a gargoyle, 
which he intended to place over a square fountain. 

*‘ In these things, which offer the jolliest possibilities, 
artists nowadays are very unresourceful,” he said. 
** We have naive German examples in the Gdnsemdnn- 
chen, the Mdnnicken Piss, and the Tugendbrumnen in 
Nuremberg. One of the best classi¢ examples is the 
drunken Silenus of Herculaneum, Water when com- 


326 ATLANTIS 


bined as a mobile element with immobile works of art, 
can run, trickle, dash, splash, spray, bubble up, or rise 
up in a splendid jet. It can hiss and sputter and foam. 
From the drinking bottle of the drunken Silenus in 
Herculaneum it must have popped. I have had a 
plaster-cast model made of the little Pompeian figure of 
Narcissus at the spring in Naples. It is exquisitely 
beautiful. I am going to place it somewhere in my 
villa. My gardens will reach down to the seashore, and 
I intend to have a landing-place for boats, with marble 
steps and balustrades and sculpture work.” 

While walking in the cold sunny air next to the slim, 
elegantly dressed sculptor, listening to his Greek fan- 
tasies, Frederick’s heart beat mightily against his ribs. 
Whenever the thought arose in his mind that here, in 
this new country, after everything that had happened, 
he would again see Ingigerd Hahlstrém dance her dance, 
he felt that he was no longer equal to the trial. The 
forces of his soul that had remained healthy were al- 
ready rising in rebellion against anything that might 
increase the power of the little demon. Nevertheless, 
he was so intimately connected with her, that the public 
exhibition of her charms tortured him, and he suffered 
from the anticipation of her great success. Yet while 
dreading it, he fervently desired it. 

The theatre was dark and empty when Ritter and 
his following entered. ‘They could scarcely see and had 
to grope their way after the young man that led them 
to seats in the parquet. Gradually, their eyes grew 
accustomed to the darkness, and they could distinguish 
the vast windowless cave, with its rows of seats, its gal- 
leries and painted ceiling. The air, smelling of dust 
and decay, lay heavily on Frederick’s lungs. There 
were recesses in the great grotto that made the impres- 


rea axokEY 
<n a aieion 


ATLANTIS 327 


sion of gloomy holes for coffins. Some of them were 
hung with grey canvas, and canvas lay spread over the 
whole parquet, with the exception of a few rows left 
free for seats for the visitors. ‘The stage curtain was 
up, and the only lighting on the stage came from a few 
incandescent lamps with weak reflectors, which cast only 
a narrow circle of light, which widened somewhat as 
the visitors’ eyes learned to be content with the faint 
illumination. 

None of the men had ever before seen an empty un- 
lighted theatre, and they felt cramped and oppressed. 
For no special reason, they lowered their voices in speak- 
ing, and sat there in the expectant mood in which people 
always await the beginning of a performance. 

No wonder that Frederick’s heart throbbed more and 
more turbulently. Even Willy Snyders, who was not 
easily shaken out of his composure and was always in- 
clined to make sarcastic remarks, was silent and ad- 
justed his glasses on his nose. He sat with his mouth 
open and his nostrils dilating. When Frederick’s eye 
happened to fall upon him in his unwonted state of self- 
forgetfulness, he was amused by the comic SEpeernnt 
of his black Japanese head. 

After a number of tense minutes had passed and noth- 
ing had yet occurred, the artists were about to unburden 
their feelings in questions and remarks, when the silence 
was suddenly broken by a tramping of feet, and the 
stage resounded with a loud, though dull and by no 
means melodious voice. It was the impresario Lilien- 
feld, in a long overcoat, his hat pushed back on his neck. 
He was scolding violently and flourishing a cane. 'The 
vision tickled the artists’ risibilities. It was all they 
could do to keep their laughter within the limits of 
courtesy. 


328 ATLANTIS 


Lilienfeld roared and called for the porter, and 
thundered unmercifully at a charwoman happening to 
stray on the empty stage. 

“* Where’s the carpet, where are the musicians, where 
is that good-for-nothing of a fellow who attends to the 
reflector? I expressly ordered him to be here at twelve 
o’clock. Miss Hahlstrém is standing back there and 
can’t get into her dressing-room.” 

A voice from the parquet — it came from the young 
man that had guided the artists to their seats — several 
times attempted a timid * Mr. Lilienfeld, Mr. Lilien- 
feld.” Finally Lilienfeld caught the sound and, hold- 
ing his hand to his ear, stepped to the edge of the stage. 
Forthwith a shower of curses, which had ceased for an 
instant, descended upon the lad, with reinforced severity. 
The reflector man came and received his dose of furious 
rebukes. A man in a silk hat pushed in three musicians, 
carrying a tom-tom, a cymbal and a flute. 

** Where’s the flower? The flower! The flower!” 
Lilienfeld now shouted into the parquet, when a hesitat- 
ing “I don’t know ” came from somewhere. Lilienfeld 
disappeared, crying “ Where’s the flower? Where’s the 
flower? ” 

** Where’s the flower? ‘The flower! The flower!” 
was taken up in endless echoes here and there, above 
and below, from the wings, on the stage, and now from 
the last rows of the parquet —a circumstance which 
only increased the artists’ inclination to titter. 

A few more lights were turned on, and a remarkable, 
great red paper flower was set on the stage. Lilienfeld, 
now better satisfied, reappeared and entered into a con- 
versation with the three musicians. 

‘“* Have you studied the dance I told you to?” he 
demanded, humming the tune and stressing the accented 


ATLANTIS 329 


parts to impress it upon them. “ Now then,” he said, 
* let’s hear what you can do.” He raised his bamboo 
cane like a conductor’s baton and said commandingly, 
*“* Well, begin.” 

And the musicians began to play that provoking, 
passionate melody, that barbaric music, now dull and 
suppressed, now loud and screeching, which, ever since 
it first began to excite his nerves, had pursued Frederick 
night and day. He thanked heaven that the darkness 
helped conceal his emotion. It was that hard, con- 
vulsive motive conjuring up the demons which had been 
the beginning of his obsession in the Kiinstlerhaus in 
Berlin. Over and again those sounds had lured him 
and led him on. 

What was this strange Ariel’s intention with him? 
At whose bidding was he acting when he assailed his 
victim with inner storms and almost let him perish in 
a real storm on the seas? ‘Why did he prick Frederick’s 
flesh with this music? Why did he cast its inseverable 
hempen cords about his throat and limbs? How was it 
that after so tremendous an eternal tragedy had been 
enacted out there on the cosmic solitudes of the ocean, 
after the waters had unmercifully swallowed so vast a 
number of men, loving life — how was it that this music 
had remained untouched and unweakened, that it had 
here resumed its fantastic devilishness? Frederick felt 
as if new cords were biting into his flesh and tightening 
about his throat. Something like the anguish and 
frenzy of a bull with a lasso about its horns came over 
him — a bull whom a cruel power will misuse for a sense- 
less, bloody show in the arena. Frederick did not hit 
about him. He did not run away, and yet he came near 
doing both. His head, it seemed to him, was wrapped 
up heavily in thick sail-cloth. He must do something 


380 ATLANTIS 


finally to rid himself of that enforced blindness. He 
must look straight in the face of his grotesque opponent 
— Prospero or Caliban? 

** There is no doubt,” Frederick felt, while the music 
tortured and harrowed him, “that men seek madness, 
they seek it again and again. They are fond of mad- 
ness. Was not madness the leader of those men who 
first made the impossible possible and crossed the ocean, 
though they were neither fish nor fowl? ” 

In Skagen in Denmark there is a sight worth seeing. 
In the dining-room of a small inn there are painted 
figureheads of foundered vessels saved from the wreck- 
age. ‘The hand of madness has unmistakably touched 
all those wooden men and women with their painted 
faces and clothes. They look forward into the distance, 
where they seem to see something beyond all. Their 
noses quiver in the air on the scent of gold and foreign 
spices. In some way or other they have come upon a 
secret and have lifted their feet from their native land 
to tread the air and pursue illusions and phantasmagoria 
and discover new secrets in the trackless salt waste. It 
was by such that El Dorado was discovered. It was 
such that have led millions and millions of men to their 
destruction. 

And Ingigerd Hahlstrém, who shortly before had 
been his painted Madonna of wood, now became Fred- 
erick’s ecstatic figurehead. He saw her high above the 
waves on the prow of a phantom sailing ship, bent for- 
ward with open mouth and wide eyes, her yellow hair 
falling straight down from both sides of her head. 

The music ceased, and Ingigerd Hahlstrém stepped 
on the stage. She was wearing a long blue evening 
cloak over her costume. 

* Mr, Lilienfeld, I think it is rather stupid to change 


ee 








POAT ae 


ROR, 2 


ATLANTIS 331 


the name of my number from ‘ Mara, the Spider’s Vic- 
tim ’ to ‘ Oberon’s Revenge,’ ” she said very dryly. 

** Miss Hahlstrém,” said the impresario, nervously, 
*‘ please, for heaven’s sake, leave that to me. I know 
the audiences here. Besides, I have reasons for choos- 
ing another title. I want to avoid a damage suit by 
Webster and Forster. Please begin, Miss Hahlstrém. 
We have to hurry.” Mr. Lilienfeld clapped his hands 
and called to the musicians to strike up. 

Again those provoking strains, immediately upon 
which Mara danced in, like a naked elf floating in the 
air. While flying in wide circles about the flower, as 
yet unseen, she resembled a fabulous, exotic butterfly 
in her transparent veil shot with gold. Willy Snyders 
called her a naiad, Ritter a moth. Franck said nothing, 
merely keeping his eyes fixed upon the transformed girl. 

The moment came when with her eyes closed, like a 
somnambulist, she sniffed the perfume and began to 
seek its source. In that seeking, there was both in- 
nocence and maddening wantonness. A fine quiver went 
through her body, like the quiver of a moth in its sultry 
love-play. At last she smelt of the flower itself, and 
her sudden rigidity showed that she had perceived the 
great spider on it. 

As Frederick knew, she did not always represent the 
horror, the numbness of fright and the flight in the same 
way. ‘The artists all admired the change of expression 
on the dancer’s sweet face, where faint distaste gave way 
to violent repulsion, fright and stark horror. As if a 
great hand had tossed her, she flew to the outer limits 
of the circle of light. 

But a force compelled her to return to the flower. 
Mara no longer followed sweet scents. The hideous 
venomous creature in the flower’s calyx drew her against 


332 ATLANTIS 


her will, struggling wildly. Her lids were no longer 
closed. It was with clairvoyant eyes that the little 
thing went to meet her doom. 

*“‘ Strange,” thought Frederick, “if her father really 
conceived the idea of this dance himself. In that case 
he may have divined his daughter’s fate with greater 
insight and love than he is credited with. As she her- 
self admitted, she is sometimes more irresistibly drawn 
by what is ugly than by what is pure and beautiful; 
and the dance follows a logical course leading on piti- 
lessly to tragedy.” 

The new phase of the dance began, in which the 
dancer looks at the spider again, takes it to be harmless, 
and laughs at herself, as it were, for her fears. In- 
gigerd portrayed this with inimitable grace, innocence 
and merriness. 

After passing through a state of pleasant repose, the 
fight with the imaginary threads enmeshing her limbs 
began. At this point, the door opening on the parquet 
creaked on its hinges, and a tall, stately, noble-looking 
old man was ushered in. He carried his hat in his hand. 
His hair was silvery grey, and his clear-cut face was 
clean shaven. He was a gentleman, “every inch of 
him.” The young man who had led the stranger in, 
dashed out again, and the gentleman seated himself near 
the door by which he had entered. Director Lilienfeld 
appeared and, turning and twisting like an eel around 
the awe-inspiring old man, officiously begged him to be 
seated in one of the front rows. 

The gentleman, Mr. Garry, President of the Society 
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and many 
other organisations, declined with a wave of his hand 
and fixed his attention upon the performance. Ingigerd 
had been confused by the creaking of the door, the ar- 


EE 


ee ee 


ATLANTIS | 333 


rival of a new spectator, and the mumbled greeting of 
her impresario. She stopped dancing. 

“Keep on! Keep on!” cried Lilienfeld. But the 
girl stepped to the edge of the stage. 

“© What’s the matter? ” she inquired. 

* Nothing, nothing at all,” the director assured her, 
all impatience. 

Ingigerd called for Doctor von Kammacher. Fred- 
erick, who was reminded of his father by the old gentle- 
man and had been looking at him with respect, was not 
a little startled when he heard his name echo through 
the theatre. It was fearfully painful and humiliating 
to him to have to step up to the platform and speak to 
Ingigerd. She bent down and told him.to go “ sound 
that old guy from the Society and try to bring him 
around.” 

“If I am not allowed to dance, I will jump from 
Brooklyn Bridge, and you can go fishing for me where 
my father is,” she cried. 

Amid convulsive jerkings of her body, throttled by the 
spider’s threads, Ingigerd ended what was apparently 
her life, though in reality nothing but her dance. 
Lilienfeld introduced Frederick to Mr. Garry. The 
stiff old descendant of the Pilgrim Fathers, who had 
come over in the Mayflower and founded the New Eng- 
land States, measured Frederick with a cold, penetrat- 
ing glance of his steely grey eyes, a glance hostile as 
a cat’s and as capable, it seemed to Frederick, as a cat’s 
to see in utter darkness. Mr. Garry spoke very quietly, 
but what he said scarcely aroused hopes that his attitude 
would be tolerant. 

*“‘ Evidently,” he said after Lilienfeld had got done 
with an eager harangue, “ evidently, the girl’s father 
has already misused her for low purposes, and evidently, 


334 ATLANTIS 


the child’s education has been neglected. The creature 
is to be pitied for not having been taught even the com- 
monest notions of feminine shame and decency. Un- 
fortunately,” he added in a cold, haughty manner, 
which in advance robbed any statements in controver- 
sion of their force, “ unfortunately we have as yet no 
law to prevent such revolting performances, which 
grossly offend public sentiment and morality.” He 
scarcely seemed to comprehend Lilienfeld’s arguments, 
assuming without question that Lilienfeld must know 
how vile he and his profession were in the eyes of every 
gentleman and that Lilienfeld in his, Mr. Garry’s, eyes 
was entitled to but one epithet, “* vermin.” 

His inadequate English prevented Frederick from 
taking an important part in the conversation. Never- 
theless, he ventured to mention the necessity under which 
Ingigerd was of earning her own living. Mr. Garry 
instantly silenced him with the old question: 

** Are you the girl’s brother? ” 

Mr. Garry left the room, and Lilienfeld cursed and 
stormed against the miserable hypocrisy of those old- 
fashioned Yankees and Puritans. 

**T have my strong suspicions,” he said, “ that an in- 
junction will be issued preventing Ingigerd Hahlstrém 
from appearing in public. I owe the whole cursed busi- 
ness to Webster and Forster.” 

When Frederick went to fetch Ingigerd in the dress- 
ing-room, he found her in tears. 

**T have nobody but you to thank for this,” she cried 
in a fury. ‘“ Why couldn’t you let me dance the first 
day under Webster and Forster, as Mr. Stoss and 
everybody else advised? ” 

“ Ingigerd,” said Frederick, “I had to look out for 
your health.” 


eS Se 


ATLANTIS 339 


“ Stuff and nonsense! You took the whole matter 
into your hands. You acted illegally, against my ex- 
pressed wish, when you chased Webster and Forster’s 
agent away from the cab when we left the steamer.” 

Frederick was disgusted. Mr. Garry had made his 
father’s personality more vivid to him than it had been 
for weeks. Although his father would never have ex- 
pressed and carried out his views in the same form as 
Mr. Garry, yet his opinions, as Frederick very well 
knew, were akin to the Yankee’s. Indeed, even in Fred- 
erick’s soul, many of the same notions, implanted by 
birth and education, remained unshaken. For the first 
time since he had fallen under Ingigerd’s spell, he real- 
ised that he was inwardly independent of her. ‘The one 
question that still troubled and occupied him was how 
to rid himself outwardly as well as inwardly from the 
degrading liaison. Without fully admitting it to 
himself, he had suffered a disenchantment in In- 
gigerd’s dance; to judge by which, the demon’s spell 
was broken. This time that alluring seductive dance 
had seemed inconceivably empty. Nor was his com- 
passion aroused to nearly the same extent as formerly. 

Franck, the gypsy painter, burst in. He behaved 
like a madman. His enthusiasm, which somewhat im- 
proved Ingigerd’s temper, was of the sort that stammers 
and stutters and cannot find the words to express itself. 
Frederick looked at him in disgust, but the next mo- 
ment started when he recognised in his behaviour the 
marks of his own former obsession. Ingigerd let 
the painter take her hand and cover it with wild, pas- 
sionate kisses, which travelled from her wrist to her 
elbow, a demonstration that seemed to her to be per- 
fectly natural and quite in order. 

**T wish you would go visit Mr, Garry again and 


336 ATLANTIS 


try to influence him with pleas and threats and money,” 
she said to Frederick. 

“That would be foolish and useless,” Frederick de- 
clared; whereupon Ingigerd wept. 

“The only friends I have,” she wailed, “ are friends 
that exploit me. Why isn’t Achleitner here? Why 
did Achleitner have to lose his life, and not somebody © 
else? Achleitner was my real friend. He knew how 
to go about things in the world, and he was rich and 
unselfish, too.” 


XVII 


Tue very next day the injunction was issued, restrain- 
ing Ingigerd Hahlstrém from dancing in public. The 
girl conducted herself wildly. Lilienfeld said the time 
had come to place the matter before the Mayor of New 
York. In order to protect Ingigerd from slander and 
from being sent to an orphan asylum, Lilienfeld, who 
was married but had no children, offered her a refuge 
in his own home on 124th Street near Lenox Avenue. 
Whether she wanted to or not, Ingigerd had to accept. 

The morning after Ingigerd’s departure to Mr. Lil- 
ienfeld’s home, when Frederick sat in front of his mod- 
ellng in a new smock of unbleached linen of Miss 
Burns’s buying, he experienced a sense of relief on 
Ingigerd’s account. A burden had been lifted from 
him. Her change of home had removed a part of the 
responsibility from his shoulders and made a break in 
the feeling he had had of their belonging to each other. 

After the rehearsal, Ingigerd was much discussed in 
the studio. Ritter had expressed to Miss Burns and 
his friends a desire to make a model of the dancing 
girl for a bronze statuette. Miss Burns told Frederick 


‘ATLANTIS 337 


of his wish. But Frederick, who was still regarded 
somewhat in the light of Ingigerd’s guardian, assented 
unwillingly. 

“ You see, Miss Eva,” he said, “I am really the last 
person in the world to stand in the way when beautiful 
things are to be created. But I am only a man, and 
if Ritter were to use Miss Hahlstrém as a model here, 
where only one or two walls would separate us, that 
would mean an end to my peace of soul.” Miss Burns 
laughed. ‘“ You may well laugh,” he said, “ but I am 
a convalescent, and relapses, you know, are worse than 
the sickness they follow.” 

A week passed, in which Frederick carried on a re- 
markable, but not, as yet, victorious warfare. He 
worked in the studio daily, and Miss Burns became his 
confidante. From his own mouth she learned what she 
had already observed, that he was languishing in the 
chains of an unhappy passion. Without ever interfer- 
ing in his spiritual struggles unless he positively de- 
manded it of her, she gave him advice as a good friend 
and comrade. 

“‘ Every time I see Ingigerd, or go out with her, or 
spend any time at all with her,” he said, “I feel out- 
raged and bored. I have firmly made up my mind not 
to go back to her.”—— A resolution frequently broken a 
few hours after it was made. 

Miss Eva was so long-suffering that Frederick never 
felt compelled to drop the theme of Ingigerd Hahl- 
strém. The girl’s soul was turned inside out and back 
again. 

One day Ingigerd said to him: 

“Take me, seduce me, do with me whatever you will, 
Frederick. Be strict, be cruel with me. Lock me up. 
You are the only man I want to have anything to do 


338 ATLANTIS 


with me any more.” Another time she said beseechingly : 
“IT want to be good, Frederick. Make me good.” 

But the very next day she again subjected her friend 
and protector to unpardonably vile treatment. The 
fact was, she already had a following of men, running 
errands for her, attending to her affairs, thinking for 
her, and paying for her. 

The thing that Frederick could not wean himself 
from was that sweet, fair, frail, pathetic body. Yet he 
was determined to wean himself. 

One day Ingigerd came to sit for Miss Burns for 
her portrait. Frederick placed a revolving stand in 
front of her and also tried to model the blonde Ma- 
donna in clay. Even Ritter had a mass of clay for 
modelling a bust of her prepared on a revolving stand, 
and the master entered into rivalry with his pupils. 
Miss Burns’s purpose in arranging these sittings was 
not easily fathomed. The result was, however, that 
the very severe study of his idol’s features had a re- 
markable effect upon Frederick. 

The flatness of her forehead, her eyebrows, the set- 
ting of her eyes, the turn of her temples, the shape of 
her ears and the twist they took where they joined her 
head, her nose as narrow as the dull edge of a knife, 
her nostrils, the oldish-looking nasolabial line, the de- 
pressions at the corners of her mouth, her beautiful yet 
brutal chin, her unbeautiful throat, with the washer- 
woman’s pit in it — all these traits had a very sober- 
ing effect upon Frederick, sapping from his imagina- 
tion every bit of its strength to beautify or palliate. 
Perhaps Miss Burns knew what results from such 
strenuous, such persistently logical observation of an 
object. In some ways it has the same effect as blood- 
letting. That is why the artist must bleed to death 


ATLANTIS 339 


unless new sources of illusion always open up to him. 

Moreover, in the long sittings, to which Ingigerd 
submitted from vanity, she betrayed the narrowness, 
the attenuation, the barrenness of her mind. In con- 
trast with Miss Burns, Frederick perceived in Ingigerd 
with fearful clearness that incompleteness which is 
eternally rudimentary. Once she brought a letter 
from her mother in Paris and read it aloud. For 
about a quarter of an hour, it actually seemed to tor- 
ture her. It was serious, severe, full of concern, and 
not unloving. Her mother referred sorrowfully to 
Hahlstrém’s death, and asked Ingigerd to come and 
live with her in Paris. She told her of a woman in 
New York, the wife of a German barber, with whom 
it would be eminently suitable for her to remain until 
she returned to Europe. She even mentioned the 
steamer she should take. | 

“TI am not wealthy,” she wrote. ‘ You will have 
to help me with my work, Ingigerd, but I will try to 
be a mother to you in every respect,”— here came the 
apodosis —“ if you make up your mind to change your 
mode of life.” 

There was hard, stupid, even savage hatred in Ingi- 
gerd’s commentaries on this and other parts of her 
mother’s letter. 

‘**T am to go to her and repent,” she mimicked, “ be- 
cause the Lord has so miraculously saved me. Mamma 
should be the first to repent. I am not going to be 
such a fool as to turn myself into a dressmaker. Al- 
ways to receive orders and listen to sermons from 
mamma! I am not bothered about myself so long as 
I am not under somebody’s thumb.” 

And so she went on, without the least hesitancy re- 
tailing the ugliest intimacies in the life of her parents, 


340 ATLANTIS 


XVIII 


Tue Mayor of New York appointed the twenty-fifth of 
February for a hearing in the City Hall, at which 
Lilienfeld and his attorneys, Brown and Samuelson, 
and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Chil- 
dren were to present their arguments for and against 
the injunction restraining Ingigerd Hahlstrém from 
dancing in public. Mrs. Lilienfeld dressed Ingigerd up 
in “smart ” clothes, put her in a cab, and in the ca- 
pacity of chaperone drove down to the City Hall with 
her. Frederick, upon whose presence Ingigerd had 
insisted, had gone ahead in another cab with Lilienfeld. 

“This is the situation,” Lilienfeld explained as they 
drove through the length of the cold, grey, dreary 
city. ‘“‘ At present New York is in the control of 
Tammany. At the last elections the Republicans were 
defeated. Ilroy, the Mayor, isa Tammany man. The 
word Tammany is derived from an Indian sachem, 
Tamenund, who figures in Cooper’s Leather-stocking 
novels. ‘The party leaders have silly Indian names and 
titles. But don’t be deceived by all that romantic In- 
dian nonsense. The members of Tammany Hall are 
mighty practical The Tammany tiger is an animal 
not to be trifled with in the great New York sheepfold. 
I think we may feel pretty sure, though not absolutely 
certain, of having the Tammany tiger, and therefore 
the Mayor, with us in this matter. Mr. Garry is a 
Republican, a deadly enemy of Tammany Hall, and it 
would give Ilroy the greatest satisfaction to deal a 
neat little blow at him and that idiotic institution, the 
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. But 
his term is nearly expired, and as he would like to be 
elected again, it is politic for him to make a few conces- 


ATLANTIS 341 


sions to the Republicans. Well, we'll see. We have to 
wait and see.” 

The cab rolled down Lenox Avenue through Central 
Park and along Fifth Avenue, past the Metropolitan 
Museum, the Lenox Library, the millionaire residences, 
and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Below Fiftieth Street it 
turned into Broadway, where Lilienfeld pointed out the 
buildings of interest, Madison Square, and the Hoff- 
man House, the gathering place of the Democrats. 
Finally they reached the City Hall Park, in the centre 
of which stands the City Hall, a marble structure with 
a cupola and a portico. In the portico the gentlemen 
awaited the ladies. 

While walking to and fro, Frederick suddenly felt 
someone tugging at his coat. He turned and saw a 
pretty, stylishly dressed little girl. 

* Why, Ella Liebling, where do you come from? ” 

Ella courtesied and said: 

“I am out with Rosa. ‘There she is.” 

Frederick turned and saw Rosa standing on the 
steps. 

* Good morning, Doctor von Kammacher,” she said. 

Frederick introduced Ella to Mr. Lilienfeld. “ Ella 
was in the shipwreck. Here you have additional proof 
of the tremendous physical power of resistance of the 
so-called weaker sex.” 

“Good morning, little girl. Is it really true that 
you were in that awful shipwreck? ” 

** Yes, indeed,”? came the unabashed answer, spiced 
with a dash of childishly coquettish pride, ‘and my 
brother was drowned.” } 

“Oh, poor child,” said Lilienfeld. His manner was 
abstracted. Evidently his mind was on the speech he 
might be compelled to deliver before the Mayor of New 


342 3 ATLANTIS 


York. ‘ Excuse me,” he said suddenly to Frederick, 
and moved a few steps away to make a hasty, nervous 
perusal of his notes, which he had written on a slip of 
paper and had taken from his pocket. 

** My mother was dead, too, but came back to life 
again.” 

*“ How’s that? How’s that?” asked Lilienfeld, 
raising his gold spectacles slightly from his nose and 
peering at her from under them. 

Frederick explained how they had had to work over 
Mrs. Liebling for several hours before they succeeded 
in resuscitating her. 

“Tf in this world honours were awarded according 
to merit,” Frederick added, “ then that simple servant- 
girl there ”— he pointed to Rosa —“ ought to receive 
greater honour as a hero of two worlds than Lafayette. 
She performed miracles. She never thought of her- 
self, but only of her mistress, Mrs. Liebling, of the 
two children, and the rest of us.” 

Frederick went to Rosa and shook hands with her. 
When he inquired for Mrs. Liebling, she turned red as 
a peony. 

“‘ Mrs. Liebling is very well,” she said, and promptly 
burst into tears, having been reminded of little Sieg- 
fried. When she dried her eyes, she told Frederick 
that she and a German consul, without Mrs. Liebling, 
had attended to all the formalities of the burial and 
that she had been the only one to see the little corpse 
laid away in the Jewish cemetery. 

“Oh, why did you stop trying to revive Siegfried 
so soon? I begged and begged you to go on. ‘There 
was still life in him. He would have come to,” she 
wailed. 


: ' 
ATLANTIS 343 


Here a stranger joined them. It was not until he 
was quite close that Frederick recognised in the cor- 
rectly clad man the valet of Arthur Stoss. 

** Doctor von Kammacher,” said Bulke, ‘* Rosa can- 
not get it out of her mind. Can’t you make her un- 
derstand that it isn’t right always to be going over 
and over such a thing and that she ought to forget it? 
It couldn’t be worse if she had lost a boy of her own. 
I want to tell you, Doctor von Kammacher, Rosa and 
I are engaged to be married.” 

** You are certainly to be congratulated, Mr. Bulke. 
I am delighted to hear it.” 

“As soon as I can get away from Mr. Stoss and 
Rosa can get away from Mrs. Liebling, we are going 
back to Europe. Before I entered the navy, I was a 
skilled butcher. My brother in Bremen wrote to me 
that there was a little meat and sausage and steamer 
supply business to be had there. We both have some 
money saved up. So why shouldn’t we try it? You 
can’t go on working for strangers forever.” 

I quite agree with you,” said Frederick. 

The marksman’s valet held out his hand to Rosa, 
whispered “ Mrs. Liebling’s coming,” and left. The 
same instant Ella ran off calling, “ Mamma.” 

Mrs. Liebling was coming through the park, walk- 
ing beside a gentleman. From her costume, befitting 
the wife of a Russian prince of the royal house, it was 
evident that she had already found the opportunity to 


replace her wardrobe. Frederick shook hands with her 
and remembered the mole under her left breast and 


} 


several other marks on the lovely body, which he had 
so ruthlessly worked like a machine to restore the breath 
to it. 


344 ATLANTIS 


She introduced him to her companion, a dark, thick- 
set, elegantly dressed man, who eyed Frederick with a 
suspicious, repellent expression. 

*‘ Curious,” thought Frederick. “This micro- 
cephalous creature thinks I am his enemy, whereas he 
ought to know what he owes me. There I toiled and 
travailed and sweated to raise the dead. I considered 
myself a highly moral instrument of Providence, and 
after all, I was working for nothing but the pleasure 
of a sleek, consequential Don Juan.” 

Mrs. Liebling, who had already been in Boston and 
Washington, was perfectly delighted with America. 

** What do you think of the New York hotels? I am 
living at the Waldorf. Aren’t they magnificent? I 
have four rooms in the front. Such quiet, such luxury, 
such beautiful pictures! You feel as if you were in 
the Arabian Nights. Doctor von Kammacher, you 
positively must go to Delmonico’s. What has Berlin, 
or even Paris, to compare with it? You can’t find a 
restaurant like Delmonico’s or hotels like New York 
hotels in Europe.” 

** Possibly,” said Frederick, quite dazed. 

“* Have you been in the Metropolitan Opera House 
yet?” 

Mrs. Liebling continued to put similar lively inter- 
rogations, to which she demanded small responses from 
Frederick, supplying most of the answers herself. 

He thought of Rosa and Siegfried and had time to 
inspect and reinspect the signor’s brand-new patent 
leather shoes, the straight creases down his trousers, his 
watch chain, his diamond scarf pin, his monocle, his 
high hat, and his expensive fur coat. 

“What have you got to do with our famous tenor 
of the Metropolitan Opera Company? ” Lilienfeld asked 


ATLANTIS 345 


Frederick, when he returned to the portico with a 
“Whew!” of relief. Frederick did not understand, 
and Lilienfeld repeated the same Italian name that Mrs. 
Liebling had mentioned in introducing the signor to 
Frederick. He was astonished that Frederick did not 
know what a world-renowned star this new friend of 
Mrs. Liebling’s was. 


XIX 


Tue meeting had so clearly put before Frederick the 
tragi-comedy of existence that his sense of humour was 
stirred and he was capable of taking the painful situa- 
tion less seriously. 

The cab with the ladies drove up. Simultaneously 
half a dozen reporters stepped into the lobby. Fred- 
erick, to his surprise, observed that most of them were 
on a rather free and easy footing with Ingigerd, and 
shook hands with her familiarly. She looked very 
dainty and pretty. 

Her rather numerous body-guard, which now in- 
cluded Mr. Samuelson and his assistant, were ushered 
into the audience chamber, a lofty wainscoted room with 
bay windows. When they entered, they saw Mr. 
Garry’s tall figure already seated at a long table near 
the empty chair that the Mayor was to occupy. He 
was dressed in black, almost like an English clergyman, 
and the theological spirit of the Puritan shone from his 
face. Yet there was too much worldly acumen, too 
much cold determination in his impressive features for 
a clergyman. He held his eye-glasses in his hand and 
now and then turned over the pages of his notes. Mr. 
Samuelson and Mr. Lilienfeld took seats on the other 
side of the Mayor’s chair, without greeting him, The 


346 ATLANTIS 


rest of the space about the table was occupied by a few 
clerks, the reporters, and other persons interested, 
among whom sat Frederick, Lilienfeld’s wife, prepos- 
sessing and stately, and Ingigerd Hahlstrém, the casus 
belli. 

The Mayor entered by a high folding door a few feet 
behind his chair. He was an Irishman, somewhere be- 
tween forty and fifty, wearing a smile of mixed shrewd- 
ness and embarrassment. Though he did not go 
through the formality of a greeting, there was a touch 
of courteous affability in the glance he cast about the 
room. 

One of the reporters at the bottom of the table 
whispered to Frederick: 

** Miss Hahlstrém’s case is going to come out all 
right. Everybody is of the firm opinion that the 
Mayor is going to give that old hypocrite a jolt.” As 
a matter of fact, the Mayor’s manner toward his hon- 
ourable neighbour on the right was- too cordial to 
presage good. Silence was ordered, and the ses- 
sion began. The Mayor called upon Mr. Garry to 
speak. 

The old gentleman arose in all his height, with a 
gravity and self-assurance seldom seen except in emi- 
nent statesmen. Frederick was fascinated. He could 
not remove his eyes from him and almost regretted that 
his speech, according to the reporter, was doomed to 
failure in advance. As for Frederick’s feelings in re- 
gard to the real issue, when he listened to the voice of 
his passion, he did not desire Ingigerd’s appearance in 
public. But for some time he had learned to silence 
that voice, and he had no objections if his cure were 
to be accomplished as the result of a severe operation. 
He felt certain that for Ingigerd to receive permission 


— a 7 














ATLANTIS BA 


to dance in public would mean a definite verdict in his 
own case. 

Mr. Garry first set forth clearly and succinctly the 
aims of his society, citing a number of cases to show 
how children are maltreated, how their health is ruined 
in industry, commerce and on the stage. —_- 

Here a reporter whispered in Frederick’s ears: 

“He should sweep before his own door. He’s a 
Wall Street man and employs a whole lot of children in 
his chemical works in Brooklyn. He is a merciless ex- 
ploiter.” 

Mr. Garry went on to explain that these abuses had 
necessitated the organisation of the Society for the Pre- 
vention of Cruelty to Children. The society made it its 
duty to interfere only in cases in which the maltreat- 
ment could be actually proved. Such a one was the 
case in hand. 

“ For several years,” he said, “ New York has been 
overrun by a peculiar sort of freebooters.” He laid 
emphasis on the word'freebooters. ‘‘'There is a con- 
nection between this phenomenon and the increasing 
atheism in our country, the increasing irreligion, and 
the craving for pleasure and dissipation, which always 
goes hand in hand with irreligion. This growing im- 
morality, this festering corruption in our midst is the 
wind that fills the sails of those pirates. The disease 
is not of American origin. It has come to us from the 
dens of vice in the large European cities, London, 
Paris, Berlin, Vienna. It is an epidemic the spread of 
which must be arrested, and to that end we must put a 
curb upon the freebooters who spread the infection and 
continue to bring it in from abroad.” 

Lilienfeld, red as a lobster with rage, fidgeted on his 
seat, 


348 ATLANTIS 


“In the opinion of these men, circumventers and 
despisers of the laws of the land, the United States is 
here merely for their purposes, to allow them to sow 
disease and rake in the dollars. They are not good 
American citizens, these peculiar Europeans. They 
are not citizens at all.” Mr. Garry pronounced every 
word with hard correctness. “That is why it is a 
matter of perfect indifference to them if our religion, 
our customs, our morals are destroyed. ‘They are un- 
scrupulous birds of prey, and once they have filled their 
crops, they return with their spoil to their haunts in 
Europe. The time has come when Americans should 
take thought and repel the invasion of such parasites.” 

While the old jingo made these cutting remarks, 
speaking with an unshaken front, proudly, hitting 
straight out from the shoulder, Frederick unwearyingly 
watched every movement of his hard, noble old face. 
The anthropologist and the newly awakened sculptor 
in him were equally stirred. When comparing the 
“‘ freebooters ” to birds of prey, Garry himself had 
resembled a bird of prey. His expression was like an 
eagle’s. He stood: with his back to the windows, but 
with his head turned slightly to one side, and when he 
spoke of the birds filling their crops, it seemed to Fred- 
erick that his light-blue eyes paled to a whitish sheen. 

Garry now came down to the subject of Ingigerd. 

“By God’s will a tremendous shipwreck has oc- 
curred, an appalling event, wholly calculated to turn 
men’s thoughts to repentance.” He interrupted him- 
self to say it was useless to go into more details on this 
point, since those who did not know how to respect such 
a visitation from God were beyond redemption. “‘ It 
has not been proved that the girl who survived the 
shipwreck is over sixteen years of age. I propose to 


ON ae 


ATLANTIS 349 


place her in a hospital, have one of the steamship com- 
panies transport her back to Europe as soon as pos- 
sible, and consign her to her mother, who lives in Paris. 
She should be placed in the care of a physician and 
under guardianship. She has been trained to do a cer- 
tain dance, during which she falls into a pathologic 
condition not unlike an epileptic fit. She turns stiff 
and rigid as a block of wood, her eyes start from her 
head, she plucks at her clothes. Finally, she falls into 
a faint and loses consciousness of her surroundings. 
Such things do not belong on the stage. It would be 
an outrage, an insult to public opinion to reproduce 
this hospital scene in a theatre. I protest against it in 
the name of good taste, in the name of public morality, 
in the name of American decency. It is not seemly to 
drag that poor unfortunate child before an audience 
and shamelessly exploit her misery, merely because the 
shipwreck has placed her name in everybody’s mouth.” 

Mr. Garry seated himself. He had pronounced his 
last words with sharp emphasis. Mr. Samuelson, 
Lilienfeld’s counsel, turned pale and arose instantly. 
The reporters moved up closer and leaned forward, 
cocking their ears to catch every word of the famous 
lawyer. He began in a very faint voice. Frederick as 
a physician saw he was suffering from chronic laryngi- 
tis, probably having exchanged his sound larynx for 
his millions. Samuelson’s delivery, his way of plead- 
ing were well known. At first he would spare himself, 
in order later to take his auditors by storm in a violent 
outburst of passion. 

When the violent outburst of passion came, it did 
not fulfill the expectations either of Lilienfeld, his 
client, or the reporters, or Frederick. It was very 
noticeable that his indignation was forced, that it did 


350 ATLANTIS 


not flow from a natural source, but from a bottle 
standing long uncorked. His iron will compelled him 
to simulate a feeling that he owed it to his client to dis- 
play. In fact, the tired, harassed man, with his small, 
pointed beard and his worn, dirty-looking skin, was 
remarkable merely as a victim of his profession. Even 
in that capacity he was not so imposing as pitiable. 
Unfortunately, he was most pitiable when he gave the 
whip and spurs to that jaded little charger, the Rosi- 
nante of his eloquence, to ride down his opponent. 

Mr. Garry and Mr. Ilroy, the Mayor, looked at each 
other significantly. They seemed to wish to return 
good for evil and come to the help of this knight of the 
sorry figure on his hack all skin and bone, which at the 
end of the attack fell and broke his legs. 

Lilienfeld could not restrain himself. He turned 
crimson. ‘The veins of his forehead swelled. ‘The time 
for remaining silent had ended and the time to speak 
had come. Since the man with the hundred typewrit- 
ers and the millions was unequal to the task, Lilienfeld 
had to take the reins in his own hands. From the 
mouth of the dumpy, bull-necked impresario, the words 
came pouring with irresistible momentum, with ele- 
mental force, as from the crater of a volcano. 

Now it was Mr. Garry’s turn to suffer in silence the 
thrusts and blows that rained down on him from his 
opponent. The old gentleman was not spared. He 
had to swallow many disagreeable statements about the 
exploitation of children in certain factories in Brook- 
lyn, about Puritan hypocrisy, about drinking water in 
public and wine in secret. He was told he was a mem- 
ber of that narrow-minded caste hating art, culture, 
and life itself, and seeing devils with cloven hoofs and 


ee ees eer!” Ure eee, Oe 


—— ae 


Te 


oem 


= 


ATLANTIS 351 


long tails in authors like Shakespeare, Byron, and 
Gocthe. , 

** Such people,” Lilienfeld said, “ are always trying 
to turn back the hands on the clock, a most revolting 
sight in this so-called land of freedom. There is very 
little hope of success in trying to turn back the hands 
on the clock. ‘The days of Puritan prudery, the both- 
ersome Puritan conscience, Puritan orthodoxy, and 
Puritan intolerance have passed, never to return. 
There is no stemming the tide of time, or the tide of 
progress, or the tide of culture. But the forces of re- 
action, threatened in their medieval management of 
things, have begun a cowardly guerilla warfare, a se- 
ries of petty, cowardly, miserable, meddlesome tricks.” 

And now Lilienfeld handed back to Mr. Garry what 
Mr. Garry had given Mr. Lilienfeld. 

“If there really is a pest in America, its seat is in 
the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. 
The society is the very breeding-place of the epidemic, - 
in so far as there is an epidemic in the land. It is 
ridiculous in Mr. Garry to maintain that Europe is a 
plague-boil, Europe is the mother of America. 
Without the genius of a Columbus —we are at this 
very moment celebrating Columbus’s discovery of 
America — without the genius of a Columbus and the 
constant influx of powerful intellects from Germany, 
England and Ireland,’’ here he winked an eye at the 
Mayor, “ the United States would be a dead and dreary 
Jand.” 

After thus moving heaven and earth and sea for the 
little dancer’s sake, Lilienfeld exposed the base intent 
of his competitors, Webster and Forster, in denouncing 
him to the Society, and indignantly repudiated Garry’s 


352 ATLANTIS 


assertion that he, Lilienfeld, was an exploiter. His 
competitors, perhaps, were exploiters. 

** See how good the conditions are under which Miss 
Hahlstrém is filling her engagement with me. There 
is my wife. In some respects she has been a mother 
to the girl. She is taking care of her in our own home, 
and the girl is in good health. She has a dancer’s 
physique. It is a piece of bare-faced impudence to 
impugn the girl’s honour. She is not a degenerate. 
She is not a neglected child. On the contrary she is 
simply a great artist.” 

Lilienfeld had left his highest tvomp for the last. 

** Mr. Garry,” he shouted so loud that the lofty win- 
dows rattled, “ Mr. Garry called me a foreigner, a 
freebooter and the like. I object most decidedly. I 
am as much an American citizen as Mr. Garry. Mr. 
Garry, do you hear I am an American citizen?” For 
certain reasons Lilienfeld had had himself naturalised 
only a month before. “ Mr. Garry, do you hear I am 
an American citizen?” he cried several times in suc- 
cession, directly addressing the old jingo and leaning 
far across the table. ‘‘ Mr. Garry, do you hear I am 
an American citizen? Mr. Garry, I am an American 
citizen, and I will have my rights like you.” 

That was the end. The wheezing in Lilienfeld’s 
chest, as he seated himself, breathing heavily, was dis- 
tinctly audible. There was not the faintest quiver in 
Mr. Garry’s face. 

After a rather lengthy pause, during which there was 
profound silence, the Mayor spoke. His words came 
out quietly, in his customary manner of mild embar- 
rassment and shrewd affability, which rather became 
him. His decision was exactly what the political au- 
gurers, judging by the constellation in the ascendant, 








ATLANTIS 353 


had prophesied. Ingigerd was granted the right to 
dance in public. 

“ The young lady, according to the decision of physi- 
cians called upon to testify, has been declared sound 
in body. There is no occasion to doubt that she is 
over sixteen years of age and no reason for preventing 
her from earning her livelihood by the exercise of an 
art which she has already practised in Europe.” 

The reporters grinned at one another significantly. 
The secret hate of the Irish Catholic toward the native 
Puritan of English descent had broken through the 
surface. Mr. Garry arose and shook his enemy’s hand 
with cold dignity. Then he walked away, drawn up 
to his full height. His other adversary, of a very dif- 
ferent nature from the Mayor, did not succeed in dart- 
ing in his face his look of hate, also of a very different 
nature from the Mayor’s; for Mr. Garry’s eyes did 
not rest upon Lilienfeld for the fraction of a second. 

Everybody crowded about Ingigerd, overwhelming 
the girl, the impresario and his wife with congratula- 
tions. In her joyous excitement Ingigerd’s small face 
beamed sweetly. She looked very lovely. It was 
something to her heart’s desire, this struggle to pos- 
sess her carried on, as it were, before the eyes of two 
continents. Indeed, the extreme importance to which 
her person had attained almost humbled her a bit; but 
her pride and pleasure every now and then showed in 
her glances, even in the glances she sent Frederick. 
The men fairly courted her and did homage to her. 
Had a princess of the royal blood come along at that 
moment, their attention could not have been: diverted 
for an instant from the little dancer, whom the delight, 
even gratitude shining in her face made very attractive. 

Lilienfeld immediately invited all the reporters to 


354 ATLANTIS 


luncheon. Mr. Samuelson declined the invitation, 
pleading an urgent appointment in the Court House. 
This may have been a pretext, for Frederick noticed, 
not without peculiar sympathy, that he was suffering 
under the consciousness of his failure. The poor man, 
so famous and influential, but now totally disregarded, 
was extremely grateful when Frederick, descending the 
City Hall stairs beside him, said a few words of appre- 
ciation of Samuelson’s presentation of the case, though 
he actually felt no appreciation. 

To excuse himself from taking part in the luncheon, 
Frederick said he had several business engagements. 
Nevertheless he had to promise Ingigerd that he would 
return in time for the demi-tasse. 


XX 


Freperick crossed the park to the main Post Office, a 
huge building, in which twenty-five hundred clerks and 
officials worked. Here he despatched a telegram, and 
then turned back into the noise of the streets, where the 
people, bending their heads before a cutting wind, ran 
about in hurrying swarms. The unceasing traffic, the 
cars and cabs and trucks, produced a deafening din. 
Frederick drew out his watch. It was half-past twelve, 
the exact time at which Miss Burns was wont to take 
her modest lunch in the little restaurant near the Grand 
Central Station. Frederick hailed a cab and drove to 
the restaurant. If on this occasion Miss Burns had 
failed to be lunching there, he would have been sadly 
disappointed. But there she was, happy as usual to 
see the young German scholar. 

** Miss Burns,” he cried, seating himself beside her, 


a 








=e Sere ae: Sem 


ATLANTIS 355 


“you see in me a man who has been dismissed from 
prison, from a reformatory, from an insane asylum. 
Congratulate me! I am at last a free and independent 
agent again.” He was blissful, exultant. “I have 
the appetite of three men, the humour of six men, and 
good spirits enough to cheer Timon of Athens out of 
the blues. I am totally indifferent to the future. So 
much is certain—no Circe has power over me any 
more.” 

Miss Burns congratulated him and laughed heartily. 

** What happened? ” she asked. . 

“JT will tell you all about the tragi-comedy in the 
City Hall some other time. First I have to prepare 
you for dreadful news. Set your teeth, Miss Eva, and 
listen — you are going to lose me.” 

“T, you!” she laughed. Yet she was somewhat | 
taken aback, and a dark red came and went on her face. 

“Yes, you are going to lose me,” Frederick re- 
peated. “I just sent a telegram to Peter Schmidt in 
Meriden, and to-morrow morning at the latest I 
shall leave you. I shall leave New York, go to the 
country, and turn farmer.” 

* Oh, I really am sorry if you are going away,” said 
Miss Burns, turning serious, though without the least 
trace of sentimentality in her voice. 

“Why should you be sorry?” Frederick cried 
gaily. ‘ You will come out to see me. The man you 
have until now known me to be has been nothing but a 
dish-rag. Perhaps, when you come to visit me in the 
country, you will discover that I am good for some- 
thing after all. I really think I see land in the dis- 
tance now. I feel I still have sound bones in my body. 
To take an illustration from chemistry. A salt solu- 
tion vigorously stirred by the spoon of God Almighty 


356 ATLANTIS 


begins to crystallise. Something in me is struggling 


to crystallise. Who knows whether, when the clouds | 


that surround and penetrate the solution precipitate, 
the result of all the storms in the glass will not be a 
new, solid piece of architecture. Perhaps the evolu- 
tion of a Teuton does not stop at the age of thirty. 
In that case the crisis may come just before the attain- 
ment of settled manhood, the crisis which, to all appear- 
ances, I have just safely passed through, and which, 
in any circumstances, I should have had to pass 
through. 

Frederick now gave a brief account of the audience 
in the City Hall, the comic clash of two worlds in 
Garry’s and Lilienfeld’s speeches, which he called tant 
de bruit pour une omelette. 


“The Mayor’s decision,” he said, “ in opening up to. 


Ingigerd the career for which she was so anxious, has 
opened up to me the way to a new life, a life all my own. 
It was almost like a physical sensation to realise that 
the Mayor’s verdict decided my case, too.” 

He described Garry and told how, despite the opposi- 
tion in their views, the descendant of Cromwell’s fol- 
lowers, whom Charles I persecuted and executed, had 
impressed him and made him think. Undoubtedly his 
harsh, severe dealings had been dictated by purely 
humanitarian sentiment for Ingigerd’s welfare, because 
of the frailty of her body and still more the frailty of 
her soul, all in accordance with the narrow-minded prin- 
ciples of a traditional belief, of which he was a credulous 
follower. As for Lilienfeld, did not victory in the 
struggle to possess Ingigerd body and soul mean money 
to him? 

*‘ Garry may really have been a hypocrite, yet wasn’t 


Lilienfeld a hypocrite, too, when he spoke openly of - 


a ee 


Se 





COO > RR ee tiie © 


ee ee ee en 


ee ee Oe 


ge ee ee ee eS ee OO eee ee 


a et ee 


oe. a 


os Sa es 


ATLANTIS 357 


Ingigerd Hahlstrém’s honour and chastity? I looked up 
in alarm, and I saw a grin glide like a malicious shadow 
over the rows of reporters. Doesn’t falsehood blossom 
everywhere? Doesn’t hypocrisy flourish equally on each 
side of every contest? Isn’t it a matter generally taken 
for granted? ” 

Frederick, as always, was feeling very comfortable in 
Miss Burns’s company. Her presence always gave him, 
spiritually speaking, a sense of neatness and order. A 
man could tell her everything, and her replies straight- 
ened things out, instead of muddling them, steadied 
things and gave them a mooring, instead of tossing them 
about tempestuously. But he was not so well satisfied 
by her manner as usually, she not seeming sufficiently 
pleased with his release. He did not know whether he 
should attribute this to lack of sympathy or to secret 
doubts. 

“TI came to you, Miss Burns, because I do not know 
anybody to whom I would rather speak of this new phase 
of my life. Tell me frankly, was I right in doing what 
I did, and do you understand how a man feels when he 
is no longer in the chains of a senseless passion? ” 

“Perhaps I do,” said Miss Burns, “ but ”— 

* But what? ” 

Miss Burns did not reply. 

“What you mean is, you cannot be certain of the 
convalescence of a man like myself. But I assure you, 


I will never sit in an audience watching that girl pub- 


licly expose her body. Still less likely am I to follow 
her to the four corners of the globe, through all the 
music-halls in the world. I am rid of her! I am free! 
I will prove to you that I am.” 

“ Tf you were to prove it to yourself, it might be of 
some value to you,” said Miss Burns, 


358 ATLANTIS 


But he much preferred to prove it to her. 

** Perhaps you think it is a whim in me or a piece of 
foolishness. Yet, the way I am constituted, it is prac- 
tically impossible for me to do anything for my sake 
alone. Your sympathy would act as a stimulus to keep 
me to my resolution.” He drew from his pocket a 
letter from Peter Schmidt, saying that near Meriden 
there was a frame house that would be suitable for Fred- 
erick. Evidently his plan to retire to rural solitude was 
by no means a recent one. ‘ When I come to myself 
in the quiet of the country, and I have reason to hope 
I will come to myself, you will hear from me. From 
time to time the world learns of a man of about thirty 
who suddenly disappears, leaving his family, his wife 
and his children in ignorance of his whereabouts. Some- 
times he is a statesman, sometimes a young professor in 
a university, sometimes a mayor in good standing with 
all the citizens of his town, sometimes a rich business 
man enjoying the respect of the community. He leaves 
most unceremoniously, without concerning himself for 
the affairs of importance, even of extreme importance, 
that he may have to attend to the next day, perhaps the 
very next hour. He obeys the iron impulse to throw off 
the entire world, his next of kin, his dearest friends, and 
be alone with himself, so alone that he passes into ob- 
livion and may even count as dead. It is a similar state, 
though perhaps not so pathologic in its character, a state 
conditioned rather by strokes of fortune, that has up- 
rooted me. Don’t forget, all social connections signify 
an immense consumption of nerve force and attach a 
person to his surroundings by a thousand threads and 
fibres. Ingigerd Hahlstrém is not the only one that is 
enmeshed and throttled in a spider’s web. Every now 
and then all of us have to pant for air and tear away 


ATLANTIS 359 


wrappings. ‘Then the moment comes when we no longer 
do the thing that has been well considered, the thing 
that convention has established, but the very thing that 
has not been considered, that takes heed of nothing, the 
purely instinctive thing. Call it what you will, fermen- 
tation, folly, passion, shipwreck, storm. Whatever it 
may be, the fact is, all at once a man again feels the de- 
sire for life expanding his lungs.” 

Frederick now drew from his pocket the photo- 
graphs of his three children, which his father and mother 
had sent along with their letters. In their great happi- 
ness that he had escaped drowning and was safe and 
sound, his parents had completely forgotten their solici- 
tude for him. 

Miss Burns took a friendly interest in the pictures and 
found a word of praise for each child. There was some 
discussion, pedagogic and non-pedagogic, of the char- 
acteristics of the little people. Frederick again spoke 
of his wife, this time without any critical reflections, 
dwelling only on her good and lovely and excellent qual- 
ities, really native to her. 

The meal was over. Frederick had eaten heartily 
of the vegetarian dishes. He rose, shook hands warmly 
with Miss Burns, and thanked her for having listened 
so patiently. He left hastily, and jumped into a cab 
in order to keep his promise to Ingigerd Hahlstrém to 
come before luncheon was over at Lilienfeld’s house. 


XXI 


Tue Lilienfelds lived in a one-family house, an exact 
replica of the other houses on the same block on 124th 
Street. Frederick found the company drinking coffee 
in a reception-room on the first floor, richly furnished 


% 


360 ATLANTIS * 


with oriental rugs, expensive lamps, Japanese vases, 
and fine, dark, highly polished walnut furniture. The 
shades were drawn, and the electric bulbs of a gorgeous 
chandelier imparted a certain splendour to the room. 
The air was heavy with the smoke of Lilienfeld’s strong 
imported cigars, at which the reporters were puffing 
away comfortably. 

Ingigerd, smoking a cigarette, was reclining in an 
easy-chair surrounded by the reporters. Her hair was 
hanging loose about her shoulders and down her back. 
Altogether her appearance was not prepossessing. 
Since she looked impossible dressed as a grown lady 
in long skirts, she wore schoolgirl clothes and was 
tempted to furbish herself up like a tight-rope dancer 
with ribbons, openwork stockings, and white shoes. 

When Frederick von Kammacher entered the room, 
she blushed slightly, and held her hand out to him in- 
dolently. Unfortunately, this hand had short, ordinary 
fingers, probably the plebeian heritage from her mother, 
her father having had long, beautiful hands. Frederick 
was at least a head taller than anybody in the room and 
was distinguished from the other gentlemen by his air of. 
good breeding. He kissed Mrs. Lilienfeld’s hand, Ger- 
man fashion, and begged her pardon for having come 
so late. 

The subject of discussion, of course, was the hearing 
in the City Hall. Lilienfeld ran about, offering the 
reporters cigars and cordials, so importunate in his hos- 
pitality as not to shrink from sticking long Havanas 
into their coat pockets and cigarettes into their cases. 
There was design in this. Every now and then he would 
take a reporter aside to force upon him information re- 
garding Ingigerd’s past, her birth, her rescue, her 
father, her European success, and the way in which her 


ATLANTIS 361 


talent had been discovered. It was a rather garish mix- 
ture of truth and fiction. Lilienfeld knew that this story 
of her life would appear in the New York newspapers 
that very same evening in connection with the report of 
the audience in the City Hall. He had brewed the 
concoction according to his own recipe from various de- 
tails that he had heard, and he felt certain of its 
effectiveness. 

Ingigerd looked very tired. But she had received 
orders to be as lavish as possible with her amiabilities 
so long as a single reporter remained in the house. 
Frederick felt sorry for her. He saw that her severe 
professional duties had begun. 

Mrs. Lilienfeld was a calm, refined woman of nearly 
forty, with a look of suffering on her face, yet extremely 
attractive. She was dressed with tasteful simplicity. 
One got the impression that her husband worshipped 
her blindly and was accustomed to act, or to refrain 
from acting, according to a scarcely perceptible glance 
from her soft, grave eyes. For all his noisiness the 
bull-necked man, coarse, brutal, sensual, was like a timid 
child before her. 

She devoted herself for a while to Frederick, who felt 
he had found grace in the lady’s eyes and that for some 
reason she wished to be helpful to him in leading him 
away from the aberrations of his passion. Had he not 
had a sense of security in the firmness of his decision, 
he might perhaps have given more serious attention to 
her searching questions, which showed that she had done 
some thinking about him. 

Her method was far from flattering to Ingigerd. 
With an infinitely disdainful smile, she called the girl, 
who was chattering nonsense to a circle of flirtatious 
reporters and was overwhelmed with their tokens of ap- 


362 ATLANTIS 


proval, “ a mechanical doll with a light head of porcelain 
filled with sawdust.” 

* A good plaything,” she said, “a plaything for a 
man, an article of merchandise, but nothing more. She 
may be worth money, but she is not worth anything else. 
She is not worth more than any piece of emptiness, any 
trifle, or knickknack.” 

Ingigerd, moved perhaps by a little wave of jealousy, 
came up and asked Frederick, without suspecting the 
significance the question had in his eyes, whether he had 
packed his things. 

* Not yet. Why should I pack my things? ” 

“ Mr. Lilienfeld,” she said, “ has made a contract for 
me for two evenings a week in Boston. You must get 
ready and go to Boston with me day after to-morrow.” 

“To the ends of the world,” said Frederick lightly, 
** to the ends of the world, dear lady.” 

She was contented, and gave Mrs. Lilienfeld a look 
of satisfaction. 


XXII 


Frepericx was greatly relieved when the festivity at 
Lilienfeld’s house was at last a thing of the past. With 
Willy Snyders’ help, he had succeeded in getting to- 
gether a few effects, and he spent part of the afternoon 
arranging them. In the evening the artists, who had 
grown very fond of their guest and were sorry to lose 
him, gave him a farewell dinner at the round table. 
For a long time Frederick had not felt so serene and 
at peace with himself and the world as that afternoon. 
After he had got his baggage ready, Willy Snyders, 
who had been waiting ever since Frederick’s arrival to 
show him his collection of Japanese art objects, invited 


ee eee 





eee ee a 


See es aS Fo 


ae 

- 
pad 

ty 
; 


ATLANTIS 363 


him to his room. It was a small room on the top floor, 
cluttered up with a mass of antiques. He first placed 
before Frederick a number of Japanese sword-guards, 
tsubas, as the Japanese call them, small elliptical pieces 
of metal, about which a man’s hand can easily reach. 
They are decorated with figures in slight relief, partly 
of the same metal as the ground, partly damascened, or 
inlaid with copper, gold, or silver. 

** A tiny object, tremendous labour,” Frederick ob- 
served, after more than an hour spent in admiring the 
wonderful workmanship of pieces in the Kamakura and 
Namban styles, pieces by members of the Goto family 
extending over centuries, of the Jakushi family, and 
the Kinai family; pieces of the Akasaka school and the 
Nara school; pieces from Fushimi in the fifteenth and 
sixteenth centuries, from Gokinai and Kagonami; glori- 
ous sword-guards in the maru-bori, maru-bori-zogan, 
and hikone-bori styles; pieces of the Hamano family, 
and so on. Who can boast a prouder aristocracy than 
Goto Mitsunori, who lived at the end of the nineteenth 
century and could trace his descent back through a line 
of sixteen ancestors, all great masters in the art of 
sword-decorating, a glorious race of craftsmen, inherit- 
ing not only the life, but also the skill of their fore- 
fathers. 

And all the things portrayed on those small oval 
tsubas! The cloven turnip of Daikoku, god of fortune. 
The god Sennin creating a man by his breath. A shin- 
ing full moon and flying geese. Wild geese flying over 
reeds. ‘The moon rising from between snow-clad moun- 
tains, an oval of iron, gold and silver, no larger than a 
man’s palm, yet suggesting the vast reaches of a moon- 
lit night. 

Frederick and Willy both marvelled at the lapidary, 


364 ATLANTIS 


style of this metal work, in which the artist with the 
finest understanding of his art displayed a wealth of 
composition within the smallest space. 

One of the tsubas represented a tea pavilion behind 
a hedge. In the spacious landscape was a waterfall, 
sky and air, perfectly depicted by holes in the iron, that 
is, by nothing. Others represented the hero Hidesato 
vanquishing a monster on the bridge of Seta; the sage 
Lao T’sze on his ox; Senno Kinko, a pious man, riding 
on his golden-eyed carp, absorbed in a book; the god 
Idaten, pursuing an oni, or devil, who had stolen 
Buddha’s pearl; a bird prying open a Venus’s shell with 
his bill; a golden-eyed octopus or cuttlefish; the sage 
Kiko leaning from the window of his house, reading a 
scroll by moonlight. 

Willy, endlessly resourceful and allowing nothing to 
daunt him, had ferreted this collection out of a restau- 
rant in the Five Points district, a restaurant of viler 
repute than even the neighbourhood it was in. A 
Japanese had left the tsubas with the proprietor of the 
den as pledge of the payment of his bill, but had dis- 
appeared without ever returning to redeem his pledge. 
Scarcely a day passed that Willy did not visit a junk 
shop on the Bowery, or in the Jewish quarter. Peering 
with his fearless, fiery eyes, which always wore an ex- 
pression of mingled astonishment and indignation, he 
ventured into the worst sections of the city, even into 
the obscurest opium hells of Chinatown, His confident 
manner and round spectacles, he told Frederick, caused 
him to be mistaken for a detective; which stood him in 
good stead in making his purchases. 

In one shop in Chinatown, belonging to a fat Chinese 
usurer, Willy for very little money came into possession 
of a quantity of Japanese prints. These were the next 


CL a 





ATLANTIS 365 


things he showed Frederick. There were most of 
Hiroshige’s views of Lake Biwa; there were the thirty- 
six views of Fujiyama by Hokusai. One of the most 
exquisite showed remnants of snow left on the mountain 
and a brownish red sun setting in a cold sky with fleecy 
clouds. There were Shunsho’s and Shigemasa’s illustra- 
tions of the book, “‘ Mirror of the Beauties of the Green 
Houses,” Yedo, 1776, and Shunsho’s illustrations of 
“The Book of Sprouting Weeds.” Frederick called 
one of Hokusai’s prints “the golden poem of summer.” 
It was a deep-blue heaven with Fujiyama to the left 
and golden grain beneath, persons sitting on benches, 
heat, radiance, joy! One of Hiroshige’s prints he 
dubbed ‘“‘ the great poem of the moon.” On wide, moist, 


_melancholy meadows, scant-leaved trees, like weeping 


willows, their branches drooping in the mirror of an idly 
flowing stream, barges loaded with turf passing by, a 
floating bridge propelled by Japanese raftsmen, the 
water blue in the evening twilight, a great, pale moon, 
veiled by pale, bloody tints, rising above the distant edge 
of the melancholy plain. 

In addition to his tsubas and prints, Willy had a col- 
lection of so-called netsuke, some in boxwood, some in 
ivory, small, dice-like carvings, representing with re- 
markable animation all sorts of real and fantastic scenes. 

Among the finest of Willy’s possessions was a Japan- 
ese figure carved in wood not more than a foot high, a 
woman selling oysters. Each least detail was most pre- 
cisely rendered. It was the attempt of a more recent 
Japanese master to portray feminine beauty. In this 
one rare instance he had succeeded, having produced 
one of those precious objects adapted to make thieves 
of their lovers. 

Willy, who mingled in American sporting circles, had 


366 ATLANTIS 


also found occasion to collect a few Indian curiosities. 
He showed Frederick the feather adornment of an 
Apache chief, a wampum belt, Indian knives and bows 
and arrows. He had made the acquaintance of Buffalo 
Bill, the famous hunter, and some Indian chief and cow- 
boys in his troupe, men in whom natural instincts are 
combined with a Barnum and Bailey business sense, and 
real excellence with the actor’s vanity. Willy’s espe- 
cial friend, whom he had been very eager for Frederick 
to meet, was a well-known acrobat who had jumped 
from the Brooklyn Bridge into the East River. 

“ Willy,” said Frederick, “ since you have so profit- 
ably employed your time in America, you won’t be going 
back to Europe empty-handed.” 

“The devil!” replied Willy. ‘ What else is to be 
got out of this damned country? ” 


XXII 


Tue next morning Frederick went down alone to the 
train. He had taken final leave of his friends the night 
before, telling them expressly not to let his departure 
interfere with their day’s routine. After placing his 
luggage in a wire basket hanging over one of the red 
plush seats in a coach which was one of a train of six or 
seven similar coaches, long and elegantly built, he re- 
turned to the platform. All of a sudden the whole little 
colony of artists appeared, with the master-sculptor at 
their head — in corpore, as college students say. Miss 
Burns, too, had come, like the rest of them, carrying 
three of those purplish-red, long-stemmed roses with 
deep green leaves which were not yet being grown in 


Europe. 


i li a ee 


1 


ATLANTIS 367 


“T feel like a prima donna,” Frederick said, really 
touched, as he took the roses from each. 

The platform and the train were as quiet as a cem- 
etery, as if there never were arrivals or departures be- 
tween friends. But here and there, the face of a 
traveller, aroused by the “ temperamental” chatter of 
the Germans, peered from behind the window-panes of 
the train to look curiously upon the little rose proces- 
sion. Finally, without a signal, or a word from any 
official, the train started to move, as if by chance. 

Soon the group of artists in the station receded. 
There stood Bonifacius Ritter, dignified and elegant, 
waving his handkerchief. There was Lobkowitz, 
friendly and serious, Willy Snyders the good-hearted, 
Franck the gypsy painter, and, last but not least, Miss 
Eva Burns. Frederick felt that with this moment, an 
epoch of his life had come to a close. He was conscious 
of what he owed these fellow-countrymen and kindred 
spirits for their warmth and hospitality, and of what he 
lost in losing them. Nevertheless, after the strange way 
of man, he was in a state of joyous excitement because 
his future, in a real and in a metaphoric sense, had been 
set in motion. 

At first the train rolled for some time through a dark 
tunnel under the city, then through an open cut between 


high walls of masonry, and finally it burst into a wide, 


free landscape. So this was America’s real face. . Only 
now, after the noises of the Witches’ Sabbath, the tur- 
moil of the great invasion, had somewhat subsided, Fred- 
erick breathed the true breath of the virgin country’s 
soil. 

Observing that all the passengers in the coach stuck 
their tickets in their hat bands, Frederick did the same, 
and then turned his eyes on the fields and hills clothed 


368 ATLANTIS 


in their white winter garments. To the young man, 
uprooted from his native soil, there was a happy, stim- 
ulating mystery in this landscape, which in the light of 
the winter sun so closely resembled his birthplace. The 
alien surroundings all spoke to him of his home. He 
could have jumped from the car and taken the snow in 
his hands, not only to look upon it, but to feel that it 
was the very same snow which as a schoolboy he had 
rolled into balls for bombarding his playmates. He 
felt as a spoiled child feels which is torn from its moth- 
er’s arms and thrown upon a heartless world of strangers 
and, after a long period of anguish, unexpectedly meets 
a sister of his mother in a dreary country far, far from 
home. He feels the blood-tie, he feels how like he is to 
her and she to him, how surprisingly, how delightfully 
she resembles his mother, feature by feature. 

At last, it seemed to Frederick, the great Atlantic 
Ocean was really behind him. Though he had landed 
in New York, he felt that until now he had not planted 
his feet firmly on the ground. Great well-established 
mother earth, the breadth and extent of her solidity, 
which he beheld again after so long a separation, at last 
set bounds in his soul to the fearful expanse and might 
of the ocean. Mother earth was a good and great 
giantess who had cunningly snatched the lives of her 
children from the giantess ocean and had put everything 
on a firm, everlasting basis with a hedge of safety all 
around, 

** Forget the tumbling waters, forget the ocean, strike 
root into the soil,” a voice within Frederick spoke; and 
while the train rolled smoothly and faster and further 
inland, he had a sense of being on a blissful flight. 

Frederick was so lost in meditation that he started 
when someone without saying a word took the ticket 











ATLANTIS 369 


from his hatband. It was a cultivated-looking man in 
a simple uniform, the conductor, who punched the card, 
said not a word, moved not a muscle of his face, and 
travelled from seat to seat, performing the same opera- 
tion and always returning the punched tickets to the 
men’s hats, which they kept on their heads. Nobody 
paid the least attention to him. Frederick smiled when 
he thought of Germany, where every train was received 
with the clanging of a bell and set in motion with three 
soundings of a gong, amid the general uproar of the 
officials, who bellowed like a horde of Apaches; and 
where the conductors demanded the tickets from the 
passengers with much rough, awkward ceremony. 

The whirring of the wheels made a pleasant accom- 
paniment to his thoughts. He was enjoying his flight, 
which signified anything but shame and disgrace. In 
his complete absorption, he discovered himself picking 
little threads from his clothes, like a spider’s cobweb, 
‘and he observed how with each minute he drew his breath 
more freely. Sometimes it seemed to him that the 
wheels of the tremendous express train were not turning 
swiftly enough on their axles, and that he himself ought 
to put his hands to the wheels to hasten on the new 
health-giving impressions and place them behind him 
like thin curtains, so that the partitions dividing him 
from that dangerous, fatal magnet which he had left be- 
hind should grow denser and denser. 

In New Haven, where the train halted for a short 
time, a negro with sandwiches and a boy with news- 
papers passed through the train. Frederick bought 
one of the papers, and found the whole disaster of the 
Roland warmed up over again in connection with the 
sensational reports of the hearing in the City Hall. On 
that bright winter day his mood was too gay and peace- 


3°10 ATLANTIS 


ful to suffer the appalling impressions of the sinking 
of the vessel and its drowning mass of humanity to re- 
vive in his soul. ‘To be sure, he had had absolutely no 
right to escape, and he was still somewhat ashamed that 
the regnant powers had preferred him to so many in- 
nocent brothers and sisters. On that account, there 
had been a time when he would have given back his life 
in a passion of embittered pity and glowing indignation; 
for there was no sin great enough to justify that hor- 
rible, brutal drowning on the seas and no merit great 
enough to justify escape from it, But on this winter 
day, on his flight from New York, his rescue filled him 
with nothing but sincere gratitude. Captain von Kes- 
sel and the many others that had gone down with the 
Roland were dead and so were removed from all pain 
and suffering. Everything about Frederick this day 
breathed an atmosphere of convalescence and reconcilia- 
tion. 

All the way from New Haven to Meriden he regaled 
himself with the sketch of Ingigerd’s life that appeared 
in the papers. He could scarcely keep from laughing. 
Lilienfeld displayed a positively poetical, exuberant im- 
agination. ‘Though Ingigerd’s father was of German 
parentage and her mother a French Swiss, Ingigerd 
figured as the scion of a noble Swedish family, and the 
body of a relative of hers was reported to be resting in 
the Riddarholms-Kyrka in Stockholm. The impresario 
well knew that Americans are fascinated by a single 
drop of royal blood. 

* Poor little thing! ” thought Frederick, as he folded 
up the newspaper. Then, at the sudden realisation of 
what tremendous import the “ poor little thing” had 
until that moment been to him and others, he clapped his 
hand to his brow and muttered, “ That’s over and done 


ES 








ATLANTIS 371 


with, that’s over and done with,” and swore several oaths 
at himself. : 


XXIV 


Perer Scumipt was at the train to meet Frederick, who 
was the only passenger getting off at Meriden. The 
little station was empty, but near by was the hurry- 
scurry of the main street of this country town of about 
twenty-five thousand inhabitants. 

“ Now,” said Schmidt, “all’s well. No more New 
York dissipation. We’ll sound different chords here in 
Meriden. My wife sends her regards. She could not 
come to meet you because she had to look after some 
patients. If you like, we might lunch together and 
afterwards drive out in a sleigh to take a look at the 
little house I found for you in the country. If it suits 
you, you can rent it at a very low figure. In the mean- 
time you can take a room at our hotel here, which the 
whole city is proud of.” 

“ Oh,” said Frederick, “I have a wild longing toe 
solitude. I should prefer to spend the very first night 
beneath my own roof far, far from the madding crowd 
of Meriden.” 

* Very well,’ responded Schmidt, “ the man that owns 
the house is a good friend of mine, a druggist. His 
name is Lamping, a pleasant Dutchman. He’ll be sat- 
isfied with any arrangements we make; and if you de- 
cide to take the house, everything can be settled with 
him in fifteen minutes.” 

The two men went to the hotel, where they were served 
with a rather tasteless meal in surroundings comfortable 
and luxurious far beyond European notions. Schmidt 
left Frederick alone for a while and in a few moments 


372 ATLANTIS 


sent a bell-boy to announce that the sleigh was waiting 
outside. To Frederick’s astonishment he found his 
friend sitting alone in a pretty, two-seated sleigh rein- 
ing in a fiery chestnut. 

“IT congratulate you on this tidy little conveyance,” 
he said. 

Peter laughed and quickly dispelled Frederick’s illu- 
sion, that the immaculate little vehicle with the horse 
and harnessings were his own. He had merely hired it 
without a driver, a frequent practice in America. 

“In fact,” he joked, “I shall be quite content if we 
get there without being pitched out into the snow. I 
confess, I have never in my life driven a horse.” 

“ Ah,” said Frederick with chuckling satisfaction, 
“it is not for nothing that my father is a general. Let 
me drive.” 

Frederick’s luggage was placed in the sleigh, he 
jumped in, caught up the reins, the chestnut reared, and 
off they dashed, with a deafening jingle of the sleigh- 
bells. Their way lay along the main street, a broad, 
bustling thoroughfare. 

“Is this the sort of horse they usually have here?” 
asked Frederick. ‘The beast is positively running 
away. If we come out of this crowded street without 
broken limbs, it will be God’s doing, not mine.” 

** Let him have his way. Every day there are one 
or niore runaways here. What’s the difference if it’s 
our turn to-day? ” 

But Frederick reined the horse in so tightly, that he 
actually succeeded in pulling him up just as the Boston- 
New York express thundered by on a line of railroad 
tracks crossing the street not safeguarded by gates or 
fence. Frederick wondered how it was that a multitude 
of children, workmen, gentlemen in high hats, ladies in 


tl i a - ae 





SS 


ATLANTIS 378 


silk dresses, horses, dogs, trucks, and carriages were not 


mangled to a pulp and dashed against the walls of the 
houses lining the tracks. The horse plunged and reared 
and shot forward over the rails behind the last coach, 
sending clods of ice and snow flying in Frederick’s and 
Peter’s faces. 

“The devil!” snorted Frederick. ‘ Now for the 
first time I observe that form of madness which is 
specifically American. If you fall under the wheels, 
you fall under the wheels. If you want to take a drive, 
be your own coachman. If you break your bones, you 
break your bones. If you break your neck, you break 
your neck.” 

Farther along on the same highway Frederick for the 
first time saw an electric street car, then still unknown 
in Europe. The brilliant sparking at the meeting of 
the trolley and the overhead wire was to him a new, 
stimulating phenomenon. The posts holding up the 
wire were all shapes, thick and slender, bowed and slant- 
ing, so that the whole made a promiscuous impression, 
though the coaches were of a pleasing shape and glided 
along with great rapidity. 

They had passed the more frequented and dangerous 
section of the city without an accident and had reached 
the open country. The houses grew lower and farther 
apart. Before the chestnut with his jingling bells lay 
an endless stretch of unblocked roadway, with excellent 
tracks for the sleigh worn into the snow. The valiant 
American could speed to his heart’s content. 

“ How strange!” thought Frederick. ‘“ Here I am 
riding in a sleigh and driving a horse, things I have not 
done since I was a boy.” 

Stories of sports and incidents that he had not 
thought of for ten years or more occurred to him. How 


ST4 ATLANTIS 


his father’s accounts of hunting expeditions and sleigh- 
ing mishaps had set them all laughing when the family 
was cosily gathered together in one room on a winter 
evening. 

During that brisk, refreshing drive Frederick’s heart 
was rejuvenated. The happiest years of his boyhood 
were as vivid to him as yesterday — thrilling, romantic 
rides by night, when the same sound of sleigh-bells 
scared the silence of sleeping forests and filled the boy’s 
soul with pictures of midnight attacks, romantic mur- 
ders, and strange devilish phantoms. In the dazzling 
brilliance of the snowy fields, breathing in the pure, 
bracing air, mere existence became unspeakable bliss. 
Sitting there in that dainty sleigh Frederick was in- 
clined to look on life as a pleasure drive. 

Suddenly he turned pale and had to hand the reins 
over to Peter Schmidt. In the jingling of the sleigh- 
bells his ear caught something like the insistent ham- 
mering ring of electric bells. It was an illusion of his 
hearing, but it filled him with rising horror, and a shiver 
went through his whole body. By the time Peter 
Schmidt, who instantly observed the change in his 
friend, had brought the horse to a stop, Frederick had 
already mastered his nervous attack. He did not ad- 
mit it was the sinking of the Roland that had unex- 
pectedly announced its presence again. He merely said 
that the noise of the bells had irritated his nerves beyond 
endurance. Fortunately, the spotless expanse of Lake 
Hanover was already close by and the little house on the 
other shore already visible. So the two men descended 
from the sleigh..- Peter Schmidt, in silence, removed the 
bells from the harness and hitched the horse to the 
branch of a bare tree, They crossed the frozen lake 


EE a “_ 


tl i Ede 


a a ee 











ATLANTIS 375 


on foot, making for the solitary house under its heavy 
covering of snow. 

Peter ascended the front door steps, which resembled 
great bolsters of snow, and opened the door. 

*“'To judge by the way it looks now, the house is 
scarcely habitable in winter.” 

* Oh, yes it is,” Frederick declared. 

Having been built for summer use only, it had no 
cellar. On the ground floor there was a little kitchen 
and two other rooms; in the attic a bedroom as large as 
the two down-stairs rooms together. In the attic room 
Frederick immediately decided to build his nest for an 
indeterminate length of time. He scouted Peter’s con- 
siderations in regard to household service. 

*T feel,” he declared, “ as if this house had been wait- 
ing for me, and I for the house.” 


XXV 


Te very next day he took up his abode in his lonely 
refuge on Lake Hanover, which he alternately dubbed 
his Diogenes tub, his Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and his retort. 
It was no Diogenes tub, because the two friends brought 
wood and anthracite coal for a little American stove in 
the bedroom, which gave quite a good deal of heat and 
made a cosey appearance with the glow of the burning 
coal visible; and because the kitchen and pantry con- 
tained everything that is necessary for life, and a little 
more. Frederick refused to have anybody. share his 
quarters with him or help with the housework. As he 
said, he wanted to settle his accounts and take his trial 
balance, and the presence of another person might be 
disturbing to that process. 


376 ATLANTIS 


After Peter Schmidt disappeared in the distance 
and the sound of the sleigh-bells had died away and 
Frederick felt he was quite alone in that wide American 
landscape wrapped in the night’s darkness, it was a su- 
preme moment for him. He returned into the house, 
closed the door and listened. He heard the crackling of 
the wood in the small kitchen stove. Taking the candle 
that had been left standing on one of the lower steps 
in the hall, he went up-stairs, where the warmth and the 
dusky glow of his little American stove rejoiced him. 
He lit a lamp, and after arranging his toilet articles 
on an unusually long, bare dresser, he settled himself 
beside the lamp in a comfortable bamboo chair. He was 
filled with a mysterious sense of rich, deep delight. 

He was alone. Outside, lay the clear, silent winter’s 
night, the same that he had known in the home of his 
childhood. The things he had hitherto experienced 
were no more, or as if they never had been. His home, 
his parents, his wife, his children, the girl that had 
drawn him across the ocean, everything that had hap- 
pened to him on his trip were nothing more in his soul 
than magic lantern pictures. 

“Ts life”? Frederick asked himself, *“* meant to be 
nothing more than material for dreams? So much is 
certain, my present condition is the sort that leaves an 
everlasting effect. We should not be unsociable, but we 
have still less right to leave this state uncultivated, which 
is the basic state of man’s personality, in which he is 
most natural and undisturbed and stands face to face 
with the mystery of life as though it were a dream.” 

During the past months, he had led a life full of in- 
cidents of the extremest contrasts. He had _ been 
alarmed, excited, menaced. His own anguish had been 
submerged in the anguish of others, and their pangs had 


ATLANTIS 3T7 


only increased his own. From the ashes of a dead love, 
the flames of another passionate illusion had flared up. 
Frederick had been driven, pursued, lured on, led about 
in the world, without a will of his own, like a puppy on a 
strap — without a will of his own and with his senses 
departed. Now at last his senses had returned. And 
the senses return when the life that has been lived in an 
unconscious state becomes material for dreams to the 
mind in a conscious state. 

Frederick took a sheet of paper, dipped a new Ameri- 
can pen in a new inkwell of fresh ink, and wrote: 
* Life: Material for Dreams.” 

He rose and again went about arranging his Robin- 
son Crusoe household to suit his fancy. He piled up 
books that he had got in New York, little Reclams and 
other volumes, among them a copy of Schleiermacher’s 
translation of Plato, which he had borrowed from Peter 
Schmidt. In front of an old Dutch sofa covered in 
leather, which Lamping, the druggist, had brought over 
from Leyden, his birthplace, stood a large, round table. 
Frederick covered the table with a green cloth and ar- 
ranged the long-stemmed roses that the artists had given 
him in plain glass vases, placing Miss Burns’s roses by _ 
themselves. Before Peter Schmidt had left, he and 
Frederick had taken a cup of coffee together. Fred- 
erick now washed and cleared away the utensils, loaded 
a revolver that Schmidt had lent him, and placed it be- 
side the inkstand on his writing table. Next he took 
from his trunk a more peaceable instrument, a Zeiss 
microscope, examined all its parts, and set it up. It 
was the microscope that he had selected years ago in 
Jena for his friend, Peter, when he was leaving for 
America. Here was a remarkable meeting with the old 
instrument. 


378 ATLANTIS 


There were more things that Frederick had to do. 
He had to take apart a seaman’s clock, put it together 
again and hang it on the wall. It was an antique that 
he had come across that very day and secured at a low 
price along with some furniture. To his joy the old 
grandfather began to tick away at a proper, dignified 
pace on the wall at the foot of the bed. There it was 
to remain in its brown case about three feet long until, 
as Frederick inwardly vowed, he would return it to its 
home in Europe, Schleswig-Holstein, for which it was 
pining. When Frederick lay on his bed, he could see 
the yellow brass pendulum gleam back and forth behind 
a small glass door. The dial was a curiosity. It was 
painted in garish colors in a primitive style and repre- 
sented a chubby-cheeked sun wearing the Island of 
Heligoland as a crown. Below the face, little metal sail- 
ing vessels connected with the clockwork swayed back 
and forth in the same sober rhythm as the pendulum. 
This was designed to make the tempest-tossed seafarer 
doubly sensible of the comforts of a solid hearth. 

** When was it,” Frederick pondered, “ that I listened 
to Mr. Garry’s cutting remarks, Mr. Samuelson’s un- 
successful attack, and Lilienfeld’s wild sally against 
Puritan intolerance — a low, hypocritical battle ostensi- 
bly fought for the salvation of a soul; in reality nothing 
more than the clapperclawing of crows over a helpless 
hare. When was it? It must have been years ago. 
But no, it was only last night that Ingigerd appeared 
in public for the first time. So it cannot have been 
longer ago than day before yesterday.” 

He had already received her first letter. He had 
laughed over it heartily, and yet it had moved him. 
She was furious and complained bitterly of his breach 
of faith, In one and the same breath, she said she had 


ee 





ATLANTIS 319 


been dreadfully deceived in him and had seen through 
him the very moment she laid eyes on him when he came 
up to speak to her after her dance in Berlin. In one 
sentence she tore his character to shreds, in the next 
sentence urged him to return. 

“TJ celebrated a tremendous triumph to-day. The 
audience lost their heads. After the performance 
Lord came up to congratulate me. He is a hand- 
some young Englishman, who is living over here because 
he had a falling out with his father. But when the old 
man dies, he will inherit the title of duke and millions.” 

“This story,” Frederick thought, “is either a true 
story or a concoction. If a concoction, then I have 
reason to assume that the little girl wants to make me 
jealous and so has not lost interest in me. But the 
story need not be an invention, either wholly or in part. 
For if an invention, it will undoubtedly become a fact 
within three or four days, or, at the utmost, within a 
week. Some rich rascal will come along and buy her.” 

Frederick shrugged his shoulders. He no longer felt 
the slightest impulse to be the girl’s protector, knight 
and saviour, or the faintest solicitude for her probable 
fate. 

The next morning he awoke in a shiver, though the 
stove had retained some heat and the sun was shining 
into the room brightly. He took his gold watch from 
his pocket —a possession that had escaped drowning 
with him — and ascertained that his pulse was beating 
more than a hundred times a minute, which is too much 
for a healthy man. But he paid no attention to his con- 
dition, got up, washed all over in cold water, dressed, and 
prepared his breakfast, by no means feeling like an in- 
valid. Nevertheless he was aware he ought to be cau- 
tious, knowing that now, when the tension and excitement 





380 ; ATLANTIS 


had relaxed, his body might have to confess to its con- 
sumption of capital and file a petition in bankruptcy. 
Sometimes, without a warning to one’s strength, the 
body overcomes the severest hardships as if the thing 
were mere child’s play; and all goes well so long as the 
stimulated body is in motion. It works on its surplus 
energy, and as soon as the will and the tension relax, it 
collapses. 


XXVI 


Snort ty before ten o’clock Frederick was in his friend’s 
consultation room. The walk to Meriden on the brisk 
winter day had done him good, 

“*How did you sleep?” asked Schmidt. “ You 
know, you superstitious people maintain that what you 
dream the first night in a strange place will come true.” 

“I hope not,” said Frederick. ‘ My first night was 
rather insignificant, and things passed _helter-skelter 
through my brain.” 

He said nothing of a dream he had had, in which he 
heard the ringing of the electric bells on the Roland. 
Though he fought against the impression, it obstinately 
transported him back to those horrid moments of the 
shipwreck. Little by little this illusion of his hearing 
had become Frederick’s cross. Sometimes he feared it 
might be a species of aura, which he, as a physician, 
knew not infrequently announces an attack of severe 
illness, 

The consultation rooms of the two physicians were 
separated by the waiting-room, which they used in com- 
mon. Mrs. Schmidt, whom Frederick had met the day 
before, came over and, greeting him parenthetically, 
asked her husband to help her with the examination of 


ee ee 


ATLANTIS 3u1, 


one of her patients, a woman of about twenty-seven, who 
shortly before had married a workman holding a good 
position in one of the Meriden factories. ‘The woman 
complained of an upset stomach. Mrs. Schmidt sus- 
pected cancer of the stomach. 

Both Schmidt and his wife asked Frederick to join 
them in the examination. They found the patient smil- 
ing as she lay stretched on the table. Her smile 
changed to an expression of astonishment when she saw 
the two gentlemen. Mrs. Schmidt introduced Fred- 
erick as a famous German physician. 

** I just spoiled my stomach a little,” the woman, who 
was pretty and well dressed, said in excuse for the trou- 
ble she was giving. ‘ My husband will laugh at me and 
scold me if he hears I ran to a doctor.” 

Frederick and Peter confirmed Mrs. Schmidt’s diag- 
nosis, and Mrs. Schmidt told the candidate for the grave, 
who was so gay and unsuspecting, that she might have 
to undergo a slight operation. She inquired kindly 
for her husband and her child, who had come into the 
world three months before with her help, and the woman 
gave ready answers in the best of spirits. Peter took 
it upon himself to acquaint her husband the very same 
day with her condition. 

During the next week, Peter drew his friend more and 
more into his practice. Frederick found a certain grim 
attraction in it. It was a strange treadmill, set in a 
world of everlasting suffering and dying, in a subter- 
ranean stratum of life, having nothing in common with 
that deceptive existence of a comparatively happy super- 
ficiality which he had been able to lead in New York. 
The Schmidts were doing hard service requiring the ut- 
most self-renunciation. 'They received no greater com- 
pensation than enabled them to obtain sufficient food, 


382 ATLANTIS 


clothing and shelter to be able to continue in that service. 
Though Peter Schmidt was not a Socialist, his practice 
was almost exclusively confined to the working class. 
Most of the two doctors’ clients were poor immigrants 
with large families, who toiled laboriously in the Britan- 
nia-metal factories to keep the wolf from the door. 
Their fees were extremely low, and in half the cases 
Peter, true to his views of life, did not collect them. 

The section of the city in which their office was lo- 
cated was dismal beyond parallel. A factory with its 
offices took up a whole block. Though Frederick was 
well acquainted with the corrosive sublimate and car- 
bolic acid smell of consultation rooms, he nevertheless 
had difficulty in concealing the depressing effect the 
Schmidts’ home had upon him. It was dark and 
gloomy, and the street noises came in directly from the 
windows. In Germany, a city of thirty thousand in- 
habitants is dead. This American city of twenty-five 
_ thousand inhabitants raced and rushed, rang bells, rat- 
tled and clattered and raved like mad. Nobody had a 
moment’s time. Everybody hurried past everybody 
else. No question of joy in life here. If a man lived 
in Meriden, he lived there to work. If a man worked 
in Meriden, he worked for the sake of the dollars that 
had the power finally to free him from that environment 
and introduce him to a period of enjoyment. Most of 
the people, especially the German and Polish workmen 
and tradesmen, saw in the life they were compelled to 
lead a temporary, provisional existence, a condition 
the bitterness of which was intensified when return to 
the home country was cut off by sins committed in the 
past or by expulsion and banishment. From psycho- 
logic interest, Frederick had entered into conversation 
with patients in the waiting-room and had already 


ATLANTIS 383 


learned of sad cases of men having been ejected from 
their country and left without a home. 

Mrs. Schmidt was a Swiss. She had a broad German 
head, straight, finely chiselled nose, and a figure like 
the figures of the women of Basel that Holbein painted. 

“She is much too good for you,” Frederick teased 
Peter. ‘She ought to be the wife of a Diirer, or still 
better, the wife of the wealthy Ratsherr Willibald Pirk- 
heimer of Nuremberg. She was born to preside over 
a comfortable patrician household, with closets and 
chests full of linen and heavy silk and brocade gar- 
ments. She should go to sleep every night on a bed 
three yards high covered with silk spreads. She should 
have twice as many hats and fur garments as the town 
council allows the wealthy. Instead of that, poor soul, 
she studied medicine, and you let her run around to 
every Tom, Dick, and Harry with her little bag of ill 
omen.” 

As a matter of fact, the ugliness of her surroundings 
and the strenuousness of her occupation, which opened 
up no vista of hope and usually robbed her of four 
nights’ sleep in a week, had made of Mrs. Schmidt an 
embittered person suffering from homesickness. What 
aggravated matters was that she was dominated by an 
obstinate sense of duty and that dogged insistence on 
saving characteristic of the Swiss. Since her parents’ 
letters strengthened her in her notions, she was not to 
be shaken in her resolve not to return home until after 
a certain sum had been laid aside, and of this there was 
no immediate prospect. Whenever Peter, saddened to 
see his wife withering away from overwork and nos- 
talgia, proposed that they return to Europe, she would 
become very hard, cutting and bitter. But when she 
had a free hour in which to talk to Frederick and her 


384 ATLANTIS 


husband of the Swiss mountains and mountain climbs, 
she revived visibly. ‘There, in the musty office, or in 
the physicians’ private rooms, arose the glorious vision 
of Sentis, in the face of which Mrs. Schmidt had been 
rocked in her cradle. The conversation, of course, 
turned on Scheffel’s * Ekkehard,”? the chamois reserve, 
Lake Constance, and St. Gall. They recalled memories 
of a Rigi tour, a tour up from Lake Lucerne at Fluelen 
to Géschenen, from Géschenen to Andermatt, from An- 
dermatt up over the Rhone glacier and down to the won- 
derful Grimsel Hospice, with its clear icy-cold lake, 
which lies in a rocky funnel, like the entrance to the 
kingdom of shades. One looks about to see if Charon’s 
raft is not waiting. Mrs. Schmidt said she would 
rather be the dirtiest shepherdess on Sentis than a phy-. 
sician in Meriden. 

“Very well,’ cried Peter, “we will cross the ocean 
again and settle in Berne or Ziirich.” As always when 
Peter Schmidt made this proposition, Mrs. Schmidt’s 
face took on an expression of hard, hostile determina- 
tion. It did not escape Frederick’s notice. 

Everything Mrs. Schmidt said testified to her hu- 
manity and her clear, serious, sympathetic insight. 
What a pity she had forgotten how to laugh! What a 
pity she was not Ratsherr Willibald Pirkheimer’s 
stately, respected wife, surrounded by his healthy chil- 
dren! Her broad shoulders and hips, her long, thick hair 
required the soft curves of a body blooming in happi- 
ness, sunlight and wealth. As it was, her face, though 
she was only twenty-seven years old, was fearfully worn 
and anxious, and her shabby clothes hung carelessly on 
her angular figure. Nevertheless, Frederick perceived 
the beauty even in her neglected appearance. 


Naturally Peter Schmidt, the blond Friesian, also 


ATLANTIS 885 


suffered under these conditions, but not to such an ex- 
tent as to be shaken in his peculiar, deep-seated ideal- 
ism. It was his idealism, never for an instant forsak- 
ing him, that raised him above all momentary hardships. 
This very fact, it seemed to Frederick, only added to 
his wife’s vexation. From certain remarks of hers, he 
could tell that it would have been more pleasing to her 
had Peter cared more for his own advancement and less 
for the advancement of humanity at large. No man 
possessed firmer belief than he in the triumph of good, 
and no man rejected religious beliefs with greater hor- 
ror. He was one of those who disavow the Garden of 
Eden and declare the next world to be a myth, yet are 
firmly convinced that the earth may be developed and 
will develop into a paradise and that man may be de- 
veloped and will develop into the divinity of that para- 
dise. Frederick, too, had an inclination for Utopias, 
and his friend’s notions had a revivifying effect upon 
him. When accompanying him on his professional vis- 
its, or skating on the little Lake of Hanover, or convers- 
ing with him in his Diogenes tub, hope came back to 
him; but when his friend left, hope forsook him. 

But Peter Schmidt was no vain Utopist. He had a 
solid basis for his ideals, and endeavoured to realise 
them in practice. Frederick knew no one so well versed 
in the natural sciences, political economy, and medi- 
cine; and since he also had very accurate knowledge of 
the geography and history of the important coun- 
tries, his survey of political conditions was enviably 
broad. When twenty years old, he had upheld the 
pan-Germanic ideal. Now, at thirty, he wrote anony- 
mous editorials, which received much attention, advo- 
cating the coalition of America, Germany and Eng- 
land, while strongly objecting to the Russian policy in 


386 ATLANTIS 


Germany that originated with Bismarck. The theme 
that the friends chiefly discussed in those days may be 
summed up in the names of Marx and Darwin, or either 
of them. In Peter Schmidt a sort of adjustment, or 
rather fusing, of the fundamental tendencies of those 
two great personalities was in process, though the 
Christ-Marxian principle of the protection of the 
weaker gave way to the natural principle of the pro- 
tection of the stronger; and this mirrors the result of 
the profoundest revolution that has ever taken place in 
the history of mankind. 

“Tf, with that tough Friesian skull of yours,” Fred- 
erick once said to him, “ you succeed for twenty years 
in propagating the idea of artificial selection as ap- 
plied to man, and if the idea of race hygiene, of a teleo- 
logic improvement of human types is sufficiently spread, 
it will undoubtedly be fruitful of practical results some 
day. That is, a fresh, healthy, vigorous stream of 
blood will flow through our veins and tend more and 
more to counteract the increasing marasmus that is 
enfeebling the race.” 


XXVII 


Tue first week Frederick regularly took his midday 
meal with the two physicians in a boarding-house. To- 
wards dusk he always returned to his Diogenes tub, 
usually on foot. 

The next week he did not visit his friends so often, 
why, he himself did not know. He slept badly. Again 
and again the electric bells haunted his dreams. Even 
in his waking hours, he easily took fright, a condition 
to which in former times he had been a perfect stranger. 


If a sleigh with bells actually did pass the house, he was 


ATLANTIS 887 


sometimes so alarmed that he trembled. That he 
should hear his own breathing in the silence of his room 
did not surprise him; but it perturbed him strangely to 
listen to it. Sometimes he had chills. As a physician 
he kept a clinical thermometer, and on several occa 
sions ascertained that he had some temperature. These 
circumstances disquieted him. He seemed to be living 
in an atmosphere producing mild shocks and alarms, 
which he tried in vain to dispel. Once, when he was 
starting off to lunch with Peter Schmidt, a disinclina- 
tion to leave his room and lack of appetite kept him 
back. Another time it was complete exhaustion that 
turned him homeward again when he was half way on 
the road to Meriden. He could scarcely drag himself 
back to the house. His friends never learned anything 
of these secret experiences of his. It did not seem odd 
to them if now and then he should prefer to remain alone 
under his own roof. 

Over him came creeping a strange life, growing ever 
stranger. The world, the sky, the landscape, the 
country, everything that fell within his vision, even the 
human beings he met changed. They moved away. 
Their affairs took on a remote, alien character. In- 
deed, his own affairs underwent a change. ‘They had 
been taken from him. Somebody had led them aside 
for a time. Later, perhaps, he would find them again, 
provided the goal of his altered condition remained the 
same as his former goal. 

At length Peter Schmidt became observant of his 
friend’s retired existence. When he expressed his 
solicitude, Frederick repulsed him somewhat brusquely. 
Even his friend had grown remote. He betrayed noth- 
ing of that oppressive atmosphere of alarm in which 
he was enclosed. Curiously, there was a secret fas- 


388 ATLANTIS 


cination in it, which he was loath to share with any one 
and so have it disturbed. 

On a starless, pitch-black night, he was sitting, as 
usual, in his lonely house at his desk beside his lamp, 
when it seemed to him that someone was bending over 
his shoulder. He was holding his pen in his hand over 
a pile of disordered manuscript pages, absorbed in 
profound thought. He started and said: 

** Rasmussen, where do you come from?” He 
turned and actually saw Rasmussen sitting reading at 
the foot of his bed wearing the Lloyd cap in which he 
had come from his trip around the world. 

** How tremendously interesting!” he thought, and 
carefully studied the apparition from head to foot. He 
could see where the stuff of his jacket and the lining 
joined. He could distinguish the buttons on his waist- 
coat, and noted that the last one was off. Rasmussen 
was holding a clinical thermometer in his hand with the 
manner and attitude of a nurse who is passing unoccu- 
pied time at the patient’s bed reading. 

Frederick noticed that solitude heightens the vision- 
ary character of existence. Without a companion, a 
man is always condemned to intercourse with spirits. 
In his hermitage Frederick had merely to think of 
someone to see him in person, talking and acting as in 
life. This inflammability of his imagination did not 
alarm him. He had given George Rasmussen’s appa- 
rition cool, careful observation. Nevertheless he was 
aware that his spiritual life had entered a new phase. 

Before going to bed he went down-stairs to lock up 
the house. To his great astonishment, as he opened 
the door of one of the rooms to close the shutters, he saw 
by the light of his candle another phantom as distinct 
as the first, He congratulated himself upon no longer 


- 2S ge 


ATLANTIS 389 


having to depend upon mere hearsay in regard to this 
psycho-pathologic phenomenon. At the table four men 
were sitting playing cards. One of them was looking 
on. ‘The men had rather coarse red faces, were smok- 
ing cigarettes and drinking beer. They seemed to be 
business men. Suddenly Frederick clapped his hand to 
his forehead. From the brand and the bottle, he rec- 
ognised the beer that had been served on the Roland, 
and these men were those eternal drinkers and card 
players who had been in everybody’s mouth on the 
Roland. Shaking his head over the remarkable fact 
that they should be sitting in his own house, he returned 
up-stairs to his warm room. 

The daytime, in which he did a great deal of out-of- 
door work, even though by himself, had a wholesome 
effect upon him and brought him back to reality. On 
the whole, his opinion of his own condition remained 
sound. Nevertheless, as the sickness came creeping 
over him stealthily, he failed to notice it. It seemed 
natural to him that he should reckon with the appari- 
tion of Rasmussan sitting at the foot of his bed and 
the four men playing skat in one of his down-stairs 
rooms as with realities. In the instinct to counteract 
the physical crisis, which in a dull way he felt was 
approaching, he resorted to exercise. But even while 
skating on the lake, which he himself had swept clean 
of snow, dreams, he found, gradually threw their veil 
over him, and he associated with men and things that 
were not of the lake or of its snowy, solitary banks. 

Many Indian legends are connected with the lake and 
the little stream, the Luinnipiac, which empties into it. 
One day Frederick skated miles up the stream to fol- 
low it to its source. On the way he was accompanied 
by a hovering shadow, the corporeality of which he 


390 ATLANTIS 


never for a moment doubted. It resembled the stoker 
Zickelmann who had died on the Roland, not the Zick- 
elmann that he had seen lying stretched out a corpse in 
the stoke-hole, but the Zickelmann he had seen in his 
dream. 

The shade of the stoker told him that five engine- 
men, thirty-six stokers, and thirty-eight coal-passers 
had sunk with the Roland, a number far greater than 
Frederick had thought. 

“The harbour where you landed in your dreams,” 
he told Frederick, ‘‘ was the Atlantis, a submerged con- 
tinent. The Azores, the Madeira Islands, and the 
Canary Islands are the remnants of that continent.” 

When Frederick found himself leaning over a hole 
such as foxes make, seriously hunting for a way to the 
Toilers of the Light, he came to his senses and laughed 
at himself. 

From day to day, aye, from hour to hour, the crea- 
tions of his disordered brain assumed more and more 
fantastic forms. Rasmussen was always sitting on his 
bed, the four passengers of the Roland were always 
playing skat in the lower-room, and the sick man went 
about his house conversing in whispers with all sorts 
of invisible men and things, unconscious for hours at 
a time of where he was. Sometimes he thought he was 
in the house in which he lived when a practising physi- 
cian, at other times, in the home of his parents. As a 
rule, he was on the deck, or in the saloons of the Roland, 
crossing the ocean to America. 

* Why,” he said to himself, shaking his head, “ after 
all, the Roland did not sink.” 

After midnight he would get up from bed and 
take the wrapping from a mirror hanging on the wall, 
which he had covered up because he was not fond of 


ATLANTIS 391 


mirrors. He would hold the candle close to the glass 
and frighten himself by making grimaces, which dis- 
torted his features beyond recognition. Then he would 
talk to himself, asking questions and listening to an- 
swers, and hearing questions and giving answers. 
Some of this was utterly irrational, some perfectly ra- 
tional. It showed that he had investigated one of the 
obscurest, most awful psychic problems, the sickness of 
men who are haunted by their doubles. He jotted 
down a note: 

“The mirror has made man out of the animal. 
Without the mirror, no I and no you. Without an I 
and a you, no thought. All fundamental concepts are 
twins, beautiful and ugly, good and evil, hard and soft, 
sorrow and joy, hate and love, cowardice and courage, 
jest and earnest, and so on.” 

The image in the mirror said to Frederick: 

** You have divided yourself into you and me before 
you could distinguish the separate characteristics of 
your being, which acts only as a whole. That is, you 
divided yourself before you could divide yourself. Un- 
til you saw yourself in a mirror, you saw nothing of the 
_ world.”’ 

“It is good to be alone with my image in the mir- 
ror,” thought Frederick. ‘I don’t need all those dis- 
tressing concave and convex mirrors which other people 
are. ‘This condition in which I am is the original con- 
dition, and in the original condition one escapes the 
distortion to which other people’s words and glances 
subject one. The best thing is to be silent or to speak 
with oneself, that is, with oneself in the mirror.” 

Frederick kept this up until one evening, when he 
was returning from a walk in the neighbourhood, he 
opened the door of his room and saw himself sitting at 


392 ATLANTIS 


his desk. He stood still and rubbed his eyes, but the 
man continued to sit there, though Frederick tried to 
drive him away with a sharp look as a ray of light dis- 
pels a cloud of fog. He was filled with horror, and at 
the same time a wave of hate swept over him. 

* You or I!” he cried, quickly grasping his revolver 
and holding it to the face of his double. Hate con- 
fronted hate. It was not twin love and hate, each con- 
fronting the other. 

The mirror had been an illusion. ¥ 


XXVIII 


Pretrer Scumipt had a serious operation to perform 
for a fibroid tumour. Knowing that Frederick had 
witnessed Kocher perform the same operation in Berne 
and had repeatedly been successful with it himself, he 
called upon him for help. The patient was a native 
Yankee farmer, forty-five years of age. His son, 
a lad of nineteen, drove out in a sleigh to fetch Freder- 
ick. 

At the appointed time Frederick entered the office, 
very pale, but outwardly calm. Nobody suspected 
what a tremendous amount of will power he had to 
summon to keep his’ self-control. Like a boy saying his 
A B C’s, he kept repeating to himself: 

“T am Frederick von Kammacher. This is Peter 
Schmidt. This is his wife, and this is the patient.” 

When he looked about the room, he saw other persons, 
the shades of those he had met within the last few days 
and on his trip across the ocean. But he pulled him- 


er 


of greatest danger he had not prayed — and saw that 


ATLANTIS 393 


the unbidden guests in the room were also swearing. 

The farmer was sitting in the waiting-room. ‘The 
physicians consulted with one another, and Peter 
Schmidt and his wife urged Frederick to do the oper- 
ating. His head was a-whirl. He was hot, he trem- 
bled, but his friends detected nothing. He asked for 
a large glass of wine and went about his preparations 
without speaking. When Mrs. Schmidt brought the 
wine, he drank it down in one gulp. 

Mrs. Schmidt led the old farmer in. ‘They had 
agreed that she was to do the washing and administer 
the anxsthetic. She adjusted him on the operating 
table, bared his body, and washed it thoroughly. Then 
Peter Schmidt shaved the hair away from his armpit. 
The physicians exchanged only brief words and signs. 
It was a matter of life and death. Success hung by a 
thread. 

The torpor and composure of a somnambulist had 
come upon Frederick, who with his shirt sleeves rolled 
up was ceaselessly washing his arms and hands and 
brushing his finger nails, all at the bidding of a will not 
his own. He was acting in a state of will-lessness, of 
auto-suggestion. Yet it was with perfect lucidity and 
due. deliberation that he selected the necessary instru- 
ments from the doctor’s closet. 

The anesthetic was taking effect. Peter handed 
the instruments to Frederick, who once again carefully 
and coolly examined the morbid spot, found that the 
tumour might already have progressed too far, but 
nevertheless, with a firm, sure touch, cut into the mass 
of living flesh. He kept cursing at the insufficient 
light. The room was on the ground floor with the 
windows giving directly upon the main street with its 
heavy traffic. Contrary to expectation, the tumour lay 


894 ATLANTIS 


deep, extending between the large nerve bundles and 
blood vessels in the inner portion of the brachial plexus. 
It had to be removed with a scalpel, a very ticklish 
operation because of the proximity to the thin-walled 
great vein, which at the least incision sucks in air and 
produces instant death. But everything went well. 
The large hollow wound was stuffed with antiseptic 
gauze, and at the end of three-quarters of an hour the 
farmer, with the help of his son, was carried uncon- 
scious into a hospital room on the other side of the 
hall and laid in bed. 

Immediately after the operation, Frederick said he 
would have to telegraph to Miss Burns, who intended 
to visit him the next day, telling her not to come. But 
the words were scarcely out of his mouth, when a boy 
brought a cable message from Europe for him. He 
opened it, said not a word, and asked the farmer’s son 
to drive him straight back home. He shook hands with 
his friends and took leave without referring to the con- 
tents of the message. 

The drive in the sleigh beside the farmer’s son 
through the snowy landscape was very different from 
the drive he had taken with Peter on his arrival two 
weeks before. This time he himself was not driving; 
what was worse was the absence of the earlier feeling 
that he had regained mastery over himself and renewed 
joy in life. He feared his last moment had come. The 
country he was in, the place he was driving to, the fact 
that he was sitting in a sleigh, these things he realised 
only intermittently. Though the sun was shining in a 
cloudless sky upon a dazzling white earth, he felt for 
minutes at a time that he was being drawn forward into 
utter darkness to the accompaniment of sleigh-bells. 
The farmer boy noticed nothing, except that the 


ATLANTIS 895 


famous German physician was taciturn and extremely 
pale. 

Frederick had never been in greater need of all his 
will power. But for his iron self-control, he would 
have gone stark mad and jumped with a shout from the 
sleigh dashing along at full speed. He knew a tele- 
gram was lying crumpled in the right-hand pocket of 
his fur coat; but each time he tried to recall what was 
in the telegram, it seemed that a hammer kept knock- 
ing at his head, dulling his senses. ‘The grateful coun- 
try boy had no inkling that close beside him was sitting 
a man who had to exert superhuman strength not to 
succumb to an attack of raving madness. As a matter 
of fact, the boy was in danger of a maniac’s clutching 
him by the throat and drawing him into a life and death 
struggle. 

At his door Frederick shook hands with the farmer’s 
son and groped his way into the house through mid- 
night darkness. The boy’s few words of thanks went 
down in a rushing and roaring of vast black waters. 
The sleigh-bells began to jingle again and never ceased, 
turning into that infernal ringing that had become 
firmly fixed in Frederick’s head since the shipwreck. 

“TI am dying,” he thought when he reached his 
room. “I am dying, or else I am going crazy.’ The 
clock on the wall came into his vision and receded again. 
He saw his bed and clutched for the post. 

* Don’t fall,” said Rasmussen, who was still sitting 
there with the thermometer in his hand. 

But no, this time it was not Rasmussen. It was Mr. 
Rinck, with his yellow cat in his lap, the man who had 
been in charge of the mail on the Roland. 

“ What are you doing here, Mr. Rinck? ” Frederick 
roared. 


396 ATLANTIS 


The next moment he was at the window in the light 
of the dazzling sun, which radiated, not light, but raven- 
black darkness, like a hole in the heavens pouring out 
night. The wind suddenly began to moan and howl 
about the house. It whistled derisively through the 
door cracks, like the jeers and taunts of a mob of row- 
dies. Or was it Mr. Rinck’s cat miauing? Or was it 
children whimpering in the hall? Frederick groped 
about. The house quivered and was thrown from its 
foundations. It swayed to and fro. The walls began 
to snap and crack like wickerwork. The door flew 
open. The rain and hail whipped in. A sudden gust 
of wind lifted Frederick from his feet. Somebody 
cried “ Danger!” The electric bells raged and min- 
gled with the voices of the storm. 

“It’s not so! It’s a lie! The devil is hoaxing you. 
You will never set foot on American soil. Your hour 
is come. You are at the Judgment seat. You are go- 
ing to perdition.” 

Suddenly silence set in. Something unheard-of was 
about to happen, something far worse to see perhaps 
than to experience. Frederick wanted to save himself. 
He tried to gather his things together, but he had no 
hat. He could not find his trousers, his coat, or his 
boots. 

Outside, the moon was shining. In the bright light, 
the storm was raging. Suddenly, like a wall broad as 
the horizon, the sea came rolling up. The ocean had 
risen over both its banks. 

** Atlantis! The hour has come,” thought Freder- 
ick. ‘Our earth is to be submerged like Atlantis of 
old.” 

He ran down-stairs. On the steps he caught up his 
three children and realised it was they who all the time 


ES, 


ATLANTIS 397 


had been whining and whimpering in the hall. He car- 
ried the smallest one on his arm and led the other two by 
the hand. At the front door, they saw the dreadful 
tidal wave sweeping nearer and nearer in the ashen 
light of the moon, carrying along the ship, which was 
a steamer rolling and pounding fearfully in the waters. 
The whistles were blowing frightfully, sometimes in a 
prolonged blare, sometimes in abrupt toots, one after 
the other. 

‘It’s the Roland with Captain von Kessel,” Freder- 
ick explained to the children. “I know it. I was on 
the ship. I myself went down with that superb 
steamer.” He heard shots being fired from the strug- 
gling vessel. Rockets hissed up towards the moon and 
burst in the sombre grey of dawn, dazzling his eyes. 
** All’s over,” he said to the children. ‘ All those fine, 
brave men are doomed to rot in the water.” 

And picking up on his arm now one of the children, 
now another, and losing them and finding them again, 
he began to run to save their lives from the flood. He 
ran; he raced, he jumped, he fell down. He protested 
against having to sink after all, though he had already 
been rescued. He swore, he ran, he fell, and scrambled 
to his feet, and ran and ran, with a hideous fear in his 
breast, a senseless fear such as he had never before ex- 
perienced. When the wave overtook him, fear changed 
into soothing peace and calm. 


XXIX 


Tue next morning, with the same train by which Fred- 
erick had come, Miss Burns arrived in Meriden. She 
went directly to Peter Schmidt’s office to inquire for 


398 ATLANTIS 


him, having expected to find him awaiting her at the 
station. Peter told her of the operation Frederick had 
performed the day before. 

“It was a mighty difficult job, I tell you,” said Peter 
Schmidt, “‘ and he covered himself with glory. He in- 
tended immediately afterwards to send you a telegram 
telling you not to come. But just as he was about to 
go, he himself received a cablegram.” 

“ Well, now that I am here,” said Miss Burns in her 
sprightly way, “I shall not allow myself to be turned 
down in such an offhand manner. I don’t intend to 
visit Rome without seeing the Pope.” 

Three quarters of an hour later the two-seated sleigh 
drawn by the spirited chestnut, with whose peculiarities 
they now knew better how to deal, reached Uncle 
Tom’s Cabin on Lake Hanover. Peter, who was anx- 
ious to bring Frederick news of the farmer and tell him 
he had not developed fever, drove Miss Burns out. 
They were amazed at the condition in which they found 
things, and, as they mounted the stairs, freely ex- 
changed criticisms without lowering their voices. The 
door to Frederick’s room was slightly ajar. They 
walked in. He was lying stretched on his bed, still 
wearing the fur coat in which he had left the office after 
the operation. He was unconscious, mumbling in a 
delirium, evidently very ill. Peter Schmidt picked up 
the cablegram lying on the floor. He and Miss Burns 
felt that in the circumstances they were justified in 
learning its contents. What they read was: 


Dear Frederick, news from Jena. In spite of the great- 
est care Angéle passed away yesterday afternoon. Take 
the inevitable with composure. Keep yourself well for your 
loving old parents. 


ATLANTIS 399 


For a week Frederick hovered between life and death. 
The powers of darkness, perhaps, had never grappled 
for him so greedily. For a week his whole body was 
like something about which tongues of fire lick and roar, 
ready to consume it and send it up into the air, like a 
puff of smoke. 

Peter Schmidt, of course, brought all his medical 
skill to his friend’s service. Mrs. Schmidt, too, did 
whatever she could for him. Miss Burns felt it was 
predestination, not chance, that had brought her to 
his side at so critical a moment, and instantly decided 
not to leave until he was entirely out of danger. She 
engaged a woman attendant and a man to go on errands 
‘by day and night. 

The terrible frenzy in which Frederick had been the 
night before was apparent from the way in which things 
had been thrown about. The glass of his seaman’s 
clock on the wall was broken, and dishes were shivered 
to bits. Peter Schmidt’s diagnosis was typhoid fever. 
The first two days and nights he did not leave Freder- 
ick’s side, except when his wife took his place. The par- 
oxysms repeated themselves. Memories of the ship- 
wreck still tormented him, and at certain hours he 
would tell his attendants, whom he did not recognise, to 
look in a corner of the room, where, he said, a black 
spider, the size of a bowling ball, was lying in wait 
for him. Peter and his wife with extreme caution ap- 
plied all the means at a physician’s disposal to reduce 
his temperature; but the third day passed, and still 
it did not fall below 105.8°. Peter grew graver and 
graver. Finally, however, the fever curve showed dec- 
linations, and by the end of a week its downward 
course remained pretty constant. 

Frederick looked like a pale, empty, incombustible 


400 ATLANTIS 


husk, inside of which a great auto-da-fé had taken place. 
What a wild orgy salamander-like creatures must have 
been holding behind his sweaty forehead. Countless 
times, by the most different methods, Angéle murdered 
Ingigerd and Ingigerd Angéle. His father, the gen- 
eral, fought a pistol duel with Mr. Garry, Captain von 
Kessel acting as second and measuring the distance. 
Doctor Wilhelm kept rising again and again from be- 
neath the raging chaos in his soul. Ten or twenty 
times he brought him a human embryo wrapped in 
paper, and said: 

* To live is good. Not to live is better.” 

Hans Fiillenberg had to leave his hiding-place and 
join in the gruesome, grotesque dance to death. Some- 
times it seemed as if a puff of burning air swept all 
these figures into an oven to destroy them forever. 

Something like the dizzy movement of the sea kept 
tossing up and down. He was carried aloft — his con- 
sciousness left him. He sank deep down — again his 
consciousness left him. He flew — he lost his sense of 
ponderosity. High on the crest of this cosmic, imma- 
terial swell, he suffered constantly from nausea. In his 
lucid moments he said to himself: 

“The ocean does not wish me to be saved. It kept 
me alive just to display the full extent of its powers 
and draw me down from my security.” 

He had dreams of tremendous cosmic proportions, 
showing he had images of a might and power far ex- 
ceeding the sane, normal strength of conception, with 
no precedent for them in experience. Even when the 
life-boat with its small load of castaways, shrieking, 
praying, or unconscious, was dancing on the great 
broad swells of the heavy, mineral ocean, Frederick had 


ATLANTIS 401 


had no such feeling of the microscopic minuteness of his 
personality. 

At the end of the first week he recognised Miss Burns 
and began to understand what she had done for him. 
He smiled with difficulty and made signs with his hand 
lying limply on the bedspread. 

It was not until the end of the second week, the 
twenty-sixth of March, that the fever left him entirely. 
He spoke, slept, had vivid dreams. In a tired voice 
and sometimes with a touch of humour, he told of the 
wild things that had passed through his brain. He ex- 
pressed desires, showed gratitude, inquired for the 
farmer on whom he had operated, and smiled when Peter 
told him the wound had healed promptly and the 
farmer had driven out to bring some guinea-fowls for 
bouillon. 

Miss Burns’s management of the household was ex- 
emplary. Such considerate, ever-ready ministrations 
as Frederick received do not fall to the lot of many 
men. Physicians like Peter and his wife are not, of 
course, prone to prudery. Neither was Miss Burns, 
with her strong arms and sculptor hands, which were 
accustomed to modelling from life. ‘Though her man- 
ner was calm and composed, there was secret passion 
and a strong maternal instinct in her nursing. She 
seemed to have found her true vocation. 

At her bidding Peter sent cablegrams to Frederick’s 
parents, keeping them informed of his condition, and 
notifying them when he was pronounced out of danger. 
With the request that it be held for him until his health 
was restored, she returned a thick letter from the gen- 
eral written before Frederick was taken ill, correctly 
assuming that it contained details of his wife’s tragic 


402 ATLANTIS 


end. She knew that by keeping the letter, she might 
be tempted to betray its existence to the sick man and 
would then find it too hard to prevent him from reading 
it. At the beginning of the fourth week, she received 
a letter from the old general, in which he thanked her 
and the two doctors from the depths of his heart for 
all they had done for his son. 

**T may tell you,” he wrote, “ that poor Angéle did 
not die a natural death. At the institution, they knew 
she needed the strictest watching, but, unfortunately, 
even with the greatest care, there are moments when a 
patient is not observed. It was one of those moments 
that Angéle seized to take poison, one of the poisons 
that are frequently used and are not kept under lock 
and key.” 

The snow had melted away. Slowly, slowly Fred- 
erick adjusted himself to life again. There was a mild- 
ness in him like the mildness of nature outside his win- 
dow. It was a surprisingly sweet experience. The 
world seemed to be granting him indulgence. Lying 
on his clean bed, with the little pewter sailing vessels 
on the old seaman’s clock ticking to and fro, he had 
a sense of security and, what is more, a sense of re- 
juvenation, of having expiated and received pardon. 
From torrid black clouds, a storm had come with thun- 
der and lightning to cleanse the air. It was still rum- 
bling on the distance horizon, farther and farther away, 
never to return again, leaving behind in the weak man 
a rich, full, peaceful joy in life. 

** A cure of force, a violent eruption and revolution 
has purged your body of all poisons and putrid mat- 
ter,” said Peter Schmidt. 


ATLANTIS 403 


XXX 


‘‘ A prry no birds are singing,” Frederick said one day 
to Miss Burns, who had opened his bedroom window 
wide. 

“Yes,” said Miss Burns, “ it is a pity.” 

*“ Because,” Frederick went on, “ you say it is al- 
ready greening on the banks of Lake Hanover.” 

“What does that mean —‘ greening’? ” asked Miss 
Burns, who did not know the German word he had used. 
He laughed. 

“It means spring is coming, and spring without the 
singing of birds is a deaf and dumb spring.” 

“Come to England. There’s where you hear birds.” 

“You come to Germany, Miss Burns. There’s 
where you hear birds,” Frederick mimicked his friend’s 
drawl. 

When the time came for him to sit up for a while, he 
refused. 

“TI don’t want to get out of bed. I feel too com- 
fortable lying here,” he declared. 

Soon after the fever left him, he ceased to feel ill, 
and for the last week they had been bringing him books, 
entertaining him with stories and anecdotes of the 
neighbourhood, and reading the papers to him, all in 
moderation, of course. ‘They divined his wishes from 
his eyes. His microscope was put beside his bed, and 
he set seriously to work to examine specimens from his 
own body, an occupation that brought many jests down 
on him. The horror of his illness had turned into a 
diversion, a pleasant subject of study. 

It was not until he had left his bed and was sitting 
in a comfortable chair wrapped in blankets that he in- 
quired whether a letter had not come from his parents. 


404 ATLANTIS 


Miss Burns told him his father had written and re~ 
counted those things in his letter which she knew would 
please Frederick and ease his mind. She was aston- 
ished to hear the pale convalescent say: 

**I am convinced poor Angéle took her own life. 
Well,” he continued, “I have suffered what I had to 
suffer; but I will not reject the hand that I feel is 
graciously extended towards me. By that I mean,” he 
added, thinking from the expression in Miss Burns’s 
eyes that she did not understand him, “ that for a’ that 
and a’ that, I am glad to be restored to life and con- 
fidence in life.” 

One day, while Miss Burns was telling of some emi- 
nent men in different countries with whom she had be- 
come acquainted, mild complaints escaped her, show- 
ing she had suffered disenchantments. 

“In a year,” she said, “I am going back to Eng- 
land, to some village, and devote myself to the educa- 
tion of neglected children. The sculptor’s profession 
does not satisfy me.” 

* How would you like this, Miss Burns,” said the 
convalescent, with a frank, roguish smile, “ wouldn’t 
you like to educate a rather difficult big child? ” 

Peter and Eva had agreed not to mention Ingigerd 
Hahlstrém’s name. But one day Frederick handed 
Miss Burns a piece of paper with a verse written in lead 
pencil in a trembling hand. 

** 'To whom does this refer? ” he asked. 


“Have threads been spun? No, there were none! 
We were so chill, so small and lone. 
Have we to higher regions gone? 
To give the key Peter was not prone. 
I saw the sacramental stone 
And laid my hallowed hands thereon. 
Alas! the bread and wine were gone. 


ATLANTIS 405 


With dazzling radiance all things shone, 
*Twas base deceit; I was undone.” 


Miss Burns was touched to see that his thoughts were 
still engaged with the little dancer. On another occa- 
sion he said to her: 

“IT am not fitted to be a physician. I am incapable 
of making the sacrifice to humanity of pursuing an oc- 
cupation that depresses me so. I have a riotous im- 
agination. Perhaps I could be a writer. But I am de- 
termined to become a sculptor. While I was sick, 
especially at the end of the second week, I remodelled 
all the works of Phidias and Michael Angelo. Don’t 
misunderstand me, Eva. In becoming a sculptor, I 
am no longer ambitious of distinction. I shall merely 
be rendering homage to the greatness of art. While 
remaining a faithful workman asking nothing for my- 
self, I may in time succeed in mastering the nude form 
sufficiently to produce at least one good piece.” 

** You know I have confidence in your talent,” said 
Miss Burns. 

“ Then, what do you think of this plan, Miss Eva? 
The income from my wife’s estate is about five thou- 
sand marks, enough for the education of my three chil- 
dren. I receive an annuity of three thousand marks. 
Do you think we five could end our days in peace in a 
little house with a studio, say, near Florence? ” 

Miss Burns’s answer to the weighty question was a 
hearty laugh. 

She was intimately acquainted with the artistic dis- 
position and so, perhaps, was actually well fitted to 
educate adult children. She had been the good friend 
and comrade of two or three great artists in France 
and England, and had a soothing way of entering into 
the work, the interests, and the experiences of such ex- 


406 | ATLANTIS 


traordinary men. Neither of her parents had been an 
artist. Her father had been a plain business man. 
Yet both had possessed that veneration and love of art 
and artists which is almost as rare as the creative gift. 
In the museum at Birmingham, there were pictures by 
Burne-Jones and Rossetti and a collection of drawings, 
the gift of her father while still a. prosperous man. 
She herself was not convinced that she had an impera- 
tive calling to art. Her passion was to be useful to 
art in serving artists. This was not the first time, and 
Frederick knew it, that she had acted the part of the 
good Samaritan. She was always ready to sacrifice her- 
self in order to help artists out of every sort of diffi- 
culty. 

“IT have no desire to be a Bonifacius Ritter,” said 
Frederick. “ A great collection of studios, with works 
turned out by wholesale, no matter how excellent 
they may be, does not suit my disposition. What I 
want is a workshop opening on a garden, where I can 
pick violets in winter and break off branches of ever- 
green oak, yew, and laurel. There, in peace and quiet, 
hidden from the world, I should like to devote myself 
to art and culture in general. The myrtle, too, would 
have to blossom again within my garden wall, Miss 
Burns.” Miss Burns laughed and paid no attention to 
the allusion. 

She thoroughly approved of his plans from her own 
healthy point of view. 

** There are enough people,” she sel ** who are born 
physicians and men of action, and there are far too 
many entering those careers and jostling one another 
out of the way.” 

She spoke of Ritter with sympathy, yet in a tone of 
superiority, and smiled with benignant understanding 


ATLANTIS 407 


upon his naive penetration into the regions of the Upper 
Four Hundred. 

*“ Life,” she said, “ when it is eager to hurry on with 
a show of vivacity, demands credulity, love of pleasure, 
ambition. I, myself, before my father lost the greater 
part of his fortune, got to know high life in England 
through and through. I found it insipid and bore- 
some.” 

When Frederick was able to stand alone and walk 
and go up and down stairs, Miss Burns left for New 
York to complete the work that she had begun in Rit- 
ter’s studio, wishing to finish it before the middle of 
May, when she intended to return to England to 
straighten out some legal matters in connection with a 
small inheritance from her mother, who had died two 
years before. She had already engaged passage on 
the Auguste Victoria of the Hamburg-American line. 
Frederick von Kammacher let her go without protest. 
He did not try to detain her. He profoundly admired 
the girl who was so strong and stately; and he had 
conceived of his future existence as a state of lasting 
companionship with her. ‘There was Dutch and Ger- 
man blood combined with the culture and polish of the 
Englishwoman. Wherever she settled down, wherever 
she busied herself, she produced the cosey charm of the 
English home. She was healthy and, as Frederick had 
to admit, very beautiful. He did not detect the faint- { 
est symptom of the thing he most dreaded, feminine 
hysteria. 

* T should like to have a comrade like her for life,” 
he thought. ‘I should like her to be the mother of 
Angéle’s children,” 


408 ATLANTIS 


XXXI 


Freperickx grew better daily. It seemed to him as if 
he had been ill for more than a decade. His body was 
not undergoing a process of evolution but of rebuilding 
from fresh young cells. The same thing seemed to be 
happening to his soul. The burden that had been 
weighing upon his spirits, the restless thoughts that had 
constantly been circling about the various shipwrecks 
in his life had departed. He had thrown off his past 
as one discards a cloak which the wind and weather, 
thorns and sword thrusts have torn and worn. Mem- 
ories, which before his illness had forced themselves upon 
him unbidden in the awful guise of actual presence, 
no longer recurred to him. To his astonishment and 
satisfaction he observed that they had sunk forever on the 
other side of a remote horizon. The itinerary of his 
life had brought him to a province wholly new and 
novel. He had passed through a fearful process of fire 
and water and had come out cleansed, purified and 
young. Convalescents always grope their way into 
their newly granted lives, like children without a past. 

The American spring had come early. Suddenly the 
weather turned hot. In that part of America the tran- 
sition from winter to summer is very abrupt. In the 
pools and lakes, the bullfrogs croaked in rivalry with 
the high, clear shrilling of the other American frogs. 
Now came that unendurable combination of heat and 
humidity which Mrs. Schmidt so dreaded. She suffered 
fearfully during the summer, when she continued with her 
hard work just as in winter. 

Frederick began again to accompany Peter Schmidt 
on his professional rounds, and sometimes the friends 
took long excursions into the country. They fell back 


ATLANTIS 409 


into their old habit of revolving problems and ponder- 
ing the destinies of mankind. To his friend’s aston- 
ishment, Frederick did not display his old incisiveness 
in debate, whether in attack or defence. There was a 
cheerful placidity about him which took the keenness 
from any hope or fear of a universal character upon 
which they touched in their discussions. 

** How do you account for it? ” asked Peter Schmidt. 

** I think I have well earned the precious right merely 
to breathe, and I think I appreciate it. What I want 
to do for the time being is smell, taste, and enjoy. An 
Icarus flight does not suit my present condition, and 
with my newly awakened tender love for the super- 
ficial, you will scarcely find me ready to dig laboriously 
into the depths. I am now a bourgeois. I am done 
with my former state,” he concluded, smiling. 

Peter Schmidt, as a practising physician, expressed 
his satisfaction with this mood of Frederick’s, 

““'To be sure,” he said, “* you will change again.” 

“Time will show, but I think not,” rejoined Fred- 
erick. 

Indian lore had a fascination for Peter Schmidt. He 
liked to go to certain spots in the hilly country to which 
history or legend attaches stories of the conflicts be- 
tween the first white colonists and the Indians, and re- 
main there a long time, mentally living over again the 
experiences of the fur trappers and the tenacious 
wrestling of the settlers for possession. Sometimes, in 
a wave of warlike feeling, he would draw his revolver 
and shoot at a mark. Frederick was no match for him 
as a marksman. 

*“ The blood of the old German adventurers and col- 
onists_is flowing in your veins,” he said. ‘ A finished 
civilisMfion, over-ripe and over-refined such as ours, 


410 ATLANTIS 


really does not suit you. Where you ought to be is in 
a wilderness with a Utopia hovering above.” 

‘The world is still not much more than a wilder- 
ness,” said Peter. “ It will be quite a while before the 
structure of our cosmic philosophy will stand on a solid 
foundation. In short, Frederick, much remains to be 
done.” 

** Like the Lord God, I shall knead human beings 
from wet clay and inspire them with a living 
breath.” 

** Stuff and nonsense!” said Peter Schmidt. ‘“ Mak- 
ing dolls like that leads nowhere. You are too good to 
be doing it. You belong on the ramparts, in the front 
ranks of the battle line, my dear boy.” 

“TI for my part,” said Frederick, smiling, “ have stip- 
ulated an armistice for the next few years. I want 
for once to try to get on with what the world is able to 
offer. I want to disaccustom myself as much as pos- 
sible from reflection and dreams.” 

Frederick felt it was his duty to persuade his friend, 
both for his own and for his wife’s sake, to return to 
Europe. 

“Peter,” he said, “the Americans have no use for 
a man like you. You cannot recommend patent medi- 
cines, nor can you by administering small doses keep 
a man chained to his bed for two months when you can 
cure him with quinine in a week. You have none of 
those characteristics which in the eyes of the average 
American make an aristocrat. From the American 
point of view you are a simpleton, because you are al- 
ways ready to sacrifice yourself for every poor dog 
that strays your way. You ought to return to a land 
where, thank the Lord, the aristocracy of the spirit, the 
aristocracy of ideas is still a match for that other ar- 


ATLANTIS 411 


istocracy. You ought to return to a land that would 
consider itself defunct and buried were the men of sci- 
ence and art no longer to represent the flower of its 
inhabitants. ‘There are enough Germans here without 
you who are breaking their necks to forget the lan- 
guage of Goethe, the language their mothers taught 
them. Save your wife. Save yourself. Go back to 
Germany, go to-Switzerland, go to France, go to Eng- 
land, go anywhere you will, but don’t remain in this 
tremendous industrial corporation, where art, science, 
and true culture are, at present at least, wholly out of 
place.” 

But Peter Schmidt wavered. He loved America. 
And if, Indian fashion, he laid his ear to the ground, 
he already heard the festive music being rehearsed below 
ground that is to be played on the great day of a 
universal renaissance. 

“ All of us,” he said, “ should first be Americanized 
and then become neo-Europeans.” 

One of Frederick’s favourite walks was to the suburb 
of Meriden where the Italian wine-growers settled. 
You could hear the men singing with their voices warm 
as the sunlight, the women calling the children with 
that cry of theirs pitched in octaves. You saw brown 
men binding the vines, and on Sundays you heard them 
talking and laughing, while the boccia balls rolled with 
dull thuds over the well-trodden soil in the open fields 
where they played. Those voices and sounds were 
piercingly sweet and familiar to Frederick. 

“ You may kill me for saying so, but I am, and will 
remain, a European.” 

His homesickness grew stronger and arene He 
went about singing such passionate praises of Europe 
to his friends that he entangled them in the web of his 


ree 


412 ATLANTIS 


feelings, and finally melted away even Mrs. Schmidt’s 
rigid resistance. 

A surprising change came over her. She forgot her 
exhaustion, she moved briskly, she laughed again, and 
began to make all sorts of plans for a future in Eu- 
rope. 

The farmer upon whom Frederick had operated fairly 
persecuted him with gratitude. He expatiated upon 
how he had always relied upon God and how a man 
always can rely upon God, and how God on this occa- 
sion had sent him the right man at the right time. 
Frederick now realised the profound motive that des- 
tiny had had in sending him on his fearful trip. 

In a morbid disinclination to learn of his comrades 
on the sea trip, Frederick avoided reading newspapers. 
One day Ingigerd Hahlstrém accompanied by a distin- 
guished looking American by no means in his prime 
got off the Boston train and went directly to Peter 
Schmidt’s office. She introduced herself and asked 
whether Frederick von Kammacher was still in Meriden. 
Before he was taken ill they had exchanged letters. 
Later she had had no time to write because she had been 
making a rapid tour of the whole United States. She 
knew nothing of his illness. Peter Schmidt and his 
wife, though they had an instinctive habit of always 
telling the truth, a habit which interfered with their 
success in life, now deliberately, shamelessly, boldly told 
a barefaced lie. 

* Frederick has returned to Europe. He took a White 
Star steamer, the Robert Keats,” they told Ingigerd. 

Without informing anyone, Frederick had engaged 
passage on the Auguste Victoria for the same crossing 
as Miss Burns. Peter and his wife wanted to go by a 
slower, less expensive steamer. They were all in a 


ATLANTIS 413 


glorious state of impatience. Once more the ocean be- 
came nothing but a small pond across which their 
yearning lightly swung a bridge. 

At that time a sentimental song was being sung in 
all the theatres in America, entitled “ Hands Across the 
Sea.” Every bill-board, fence and barrel bore “ Hands 
Across the Sea.” Frederick went about humming 
““ Hands Across the Sea.”” Whenever he saw “ Hands 
Across the Sea,” his soul was stirred by a rich, beauti- 
ful melody. 

But there was one thing that still prevented Fred- 
erick from enjoying complete serenity of spirit. A 
single thought kept haunting him. Should he express 
that thought by word of mouth or by letter? He con- 
stantly wavered between the two impulses. Not a day 
passed that he did not make ten decisions, one way or 
another, until one Sunday chance came to his rescue in 
the form of Willy Snyders and Miss Eva Burns, who 
had come to Meriden on an excursion. When he saw 
the lovely girl, dressed in light summer clothes, coming 
towards him with a smile, he realised that “ Shall I? ” 
or, “ Shall I not?” had until then played an important 
réle in his deliberations. But now that question was. 
decided. 

“ Willy,” he cried beaming, “do what you will, go 
wherever you will, stay wherever you will, amuse your-. 
self as best you can, and at supper we’ll all meet at the: 
hotel.” He grasped Miss Eva’s hand and drew her 
arm in his, and she went off with him, laughing. Willy 
was greatly amazed, but he, too, burst out laughing and. 
said in his comic fashion: | 

** Oh, in that case I certainly am de trop.” 

When Frederick and Eva returned in the evening, to — 
the handsome dining-room of the Meriden Hotel, a deli- 


414 ATLANTIS 


cate charm, a tender warmth hovered about them, mak- 
ing them younger and comelier. Their friends observed 
it. ‘To their own surprise, these two human beings had 
been penetrated by a new element and a new life. 
Though they had been steering towards it, neither of 
them had had a divination of it even a short time before. 
That evening champagne was drunk. 

A week later the little colony of artists saw Miss Burns 
and Frederick off on the Auguste Victoria. 

“I am going to follow you soon,” Willy bawled as the 
steamer began to move from the pier. 

Every day on board the steamer was a Sunday to 
Frederick and Eva. The afternoon of the third day 
the captain, never suspecting that he was speaking to 
one of the survivors of the Roland, said: 

** It was hereabouts that the Roland went down about 
three months ago.” 

The sea was smooth, like a sky eternally cloudless. 
Dolphins were sporting in the waters. The night fol- 
lowing that afternoon, a glorious night, became Fred- 
erick’s and Eva’s wedding night. In blissful dreams 
they were carried over the place of horror which was 
the grave of the Roland. 

At the quay in Cuxhaven, Frederick’s parents were 
awaiting him with his children. He saw nothing but his 
children. He held them, all three of them, in his arms 
for a whole minute. They laughed and chattered and 
clung to him wildly. Eva approached them, and every- 
thing was self-understood. 

After all could get their breath again, Frederick made 
several obeisances and laid both hands on the ground, 
while looking into Eva’s eyes. Then he arose and held 
up his finger to command silence. From the broad 


ee eae 


ea eS Se aS Ey ee 


ATLANTIS Als 


stretches of the fields with their young crops came the 
thousand-throated trilling of the larks. 

“This is Germany, this is Europe! What of it, if 
after an hour like this, one should sink? ” 

The captain of the Auguste Victoria passed by and 
greeted Frederick. 

“Do you know,” said Frederick in his overflowing 
spirits, “ do you know, I am actually one of the sur- 
vivors of the Roland? ” 

“ Indeed!” said the captain, adding, as he walked 
away, “‘ Yes, we always cross the same ocean. I hope 
you have a pleasant trip, Doctor von Kammacher.” 


THE END 

















I EA A: a AIH Bt 








it) | Re 
f al + 


ei 


were 


bial 
‘) 
Aney 


i 
4 





i eh a 
Se tarta?ets 


ee: 
-_— 


nat oat 


Tie 


bat Spe 


bg 
Pat 


& 


Nees Ti 


~ 
~ 


bins 


pasbbnagehinss 


' 


= ok 


